Checkmate
by craizypet
Summary: Itachi wants something from Sakura... but she had no idea what she is even doing with him? and what does he want from her? Why is he sitting across from her, playing chess? Shouldn't he be trying to kill her or something? Why chess?
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys!!! i finally got this story up to scratch... sorry that there is no one shot like i promised you guys... i am working on it, but it needs a whole lot of touching up, as it sounds wayyyyyyyyy too much like my depressing ending of Rain... sad, but true... so i got this one out for you guys...

Itachi and Sakura one...!!! and a bit of Sasgay, as i like to call him... no offense to any Sasuke fans... i just don't get why he had to go out and be an ass...

any who, here it is, hope you guys like it!!! inspiration hit me while i was sitting in my room, reading, and listening to the rain on the roof, and here is what i vomited out... with a few ajustments here and there... and alot tidier and nicer than my description of how it just came out of my un... whats that word, meaning that you had looked through it, and made sure that it was ok to say, or write... i cant remember the word... and it is annoying me... it means like... i dont know, its what people who have big mouths say, normally just after they had said something, straight from their brain, to the world, with out any thought... grrr... i will remember it... as soon as i have finished this...

stupid brain meltdowns.

anywho, enjoy, and read and review!!!

***

Rain poured down from the heavens, the skies above a dark, looming purple colour, as the grey slashes of rain cut down at the trees, the wind gusting through their branches, whipping the falling, ripped leaves from their places and spiralling to the earth below. Thunder snarled overhead, and lighting flashed, lighting the horizon in a flash of white, before the next growl of thunder rumbled across the sky.

A lone figure sprinted through the trees, her coat flying in the wind, as it tried to take it off of her body. The figure cursed, pulling the dark material closer, and darting under a large bough, just as another roar of thunder sounded, and a bright, blazing bolt of lighting stabbed at the taller reaches of the forest, forking off to try and get another place, before fading from the figure's eyes, leaving bright spots in the place of the white light.

Soaking wet, and shivering from the cold, the single body flung herself under a tree in the hollow of its roots. She coughed, and then sneezed, murmuring to herself angrily.

"They sent me out, in this God-forsaken weather, to take a stupid effing package to a rich snobby asshole, who can't summon enough energy to get off his fat ass and travel to Konoha to get it… bloody… damn… stupid… hate this… typical…" she muttered, smoothing back her dark, almost red locks, and squeezing them out to get out the water that was dripping from her. She did the same to her clothes, including the saturated coat that she had wrapped around her shoulders.

She coughed again, looking out into the pouring rain with apprehension. She knew that she could not afford to take a break, if her village want the alliance with a powerful war lord from Rain. The country was well named, for as soon as Sakura had passed over the border line, the sky had gotten darker, and grey clouds, fat with water, had come rolling in from the south, bringing with it a cold wind, and freezing temperatures.

Forget it was summer, bring on the winter storms. Instead of the storm being a fast moving, fiery light show of lighting and sunshine, it was a damp, slow moving winter storm, complete with the doom and gloom look, and it also seemed that the weather had set in for a while, maybe a few days, at the least.

She coughed one last time, looking at the semi dry ground with longing, before throwing herself back out into the open, where the force of nature was waiting.

What a fun first solo mission it was turning out to be.

***

cough cough... for those of you who did not realise, yes, that was sarcasm.

sakura is NOT enjoying her mission. what she does not know, is that it will get worse...


	2. Chapter 2

ha ha.. and now the second main character appears... i have tried my best with Itachi, as i am not so good at writing his thoughts... he is too...

cold, emotionless, analytical? for me to write, so i did my best to keep him semi in character. do tell me if he seems too OOC... cause i would hate to write that. i hate itachi stories where he is too OOC... i mean, yes he has feelings, and yes he is human, but he is like a vampire for gods sake!!! he is like an emotions, cold, unmovable stone!!! sure, and hot, chiselled marble one of the greek god Adonis, but still!!!! he does not develope feelings for someone over night, and decide that he loves them in the morning!!!

sorry... ranting a bit there... i will get on with it now...

***

The weather was horrible.

Even he had to admit that he was glad to be inside, in weather like what it was outside. The room was small, but warm, cosy, with a cheery fire crackling inside the fireplace, and a hot mug of tea sitting on the dark, mahogany table beside him.

The man's dark, endless eyes looked over at the fire, seeming to suck away at its warmth and light, using it for himself. Of all the things in the bright, comfortable room, he was the only thing that did not quite fit in it.

He had the look of high born luxury, with his long, silky raven coloured hair, his pale, smooth skin, and his curling long eyelashes. His clothing was also of good quality, although in dark shades, the only colour, a deep, maroon, blood red of his cloak. But even that had black on it, and the colour was in moderation compared to the rest of the room.

It was not just the look, the air that he had. He held himself delicately, like he thought he was superior to everyone else. Not in a disdainful way, but more of an arrogant, proud air, like that of a satisfied, content feline.

One who could attack at anytime.

He held himself like what a jungle cat would, seeming at rest, yet silently aware of everything around them, alert, and ready at anytime. He was elegant, styled and deadly, a lethal and potent mixture of characteristics.

His presence though, was like that of a black hole, as he sucked away at the confidence and glamour of everything around him, making himself the sole, point of attention. Eyes followed him where ever he went, if he allowed them to see him.

His dark eyes were underlined by deep set lines, showing years of sleepless nights, and experience.

He was waiting, for the clock's hand to move, for the time to be right. To try and take what will be his, and to aggravate a certain younger brother into moving in on him. He had been waiting for a puzzle, a challenge of some sorts, but when it had been clear that no one would provide such a thing, he had taken control, and made his own. He had pulled out a chess board, and guided his opponents hand to moving his players into the best position.

But then, he had to stop helping his opponent, and start playing.

The game began tonight.

***

he he... chess... gotta love it...

ok, he does actually have a chess board, as you find out later, but the one that i mentioned just then, was a figure of speech.

so how did i go???!!!!

R&R!!!


	3. Chapter 3

cough cough... no comments now... just read.

***

Sakura ducked under the eves of an inn, looking at the door with absolute happiness. She had finally gotten to the place that she had to get to, to meet her client. She pushed open the door, and shut it behind her quietly, looking around the flash inn.

It was higher class that was for sure. Only someone with money could stay here. Someone who had old money passed down through generation to generation, from rich, wealthy father, to equally rich son. Either that or you had to have contacts. Powerful ones at that. Especially to be able to hire out the whole inn, and send the owners of the inn to another place to stay.

She blinked as she stepped over the threshold, and then froze, as she felt a powerful, chakra laden jutsu fall into place around her, creating a barrier to stop anyone from getting in, and from anyone getting out. It was too strong for her to fight, and the chakra behind it was dark, and devious, full of malicious intent.

She felt the first wave of fear then.

The second crippling wave of fear and dread came as she heard footsteps from behind her. They were quiet, almost impossible to hear, except for the fact that the stalker obviously wanted her to hear them. They sounded strong, cat like, as they were delicate and graceful, from the clicking heel fall, and then the following pat of the toes.

The third as she turned around, and looked into deep, crimson red eyes.

***

Bright, emerald green eyes looked back at him, emotions racing across her pale, bloodless face, her eyes windows to her soul. She was shivering, from fear or the cold, dripping rain, he was not sure, but he found amusement in her, the way she looked, and her weak, pitiful emotions.

He chuckled, a dark, sinful sound.

She shook, taking a step back, her hand against the wall, her pale, delicate fingers shaking with fear, and her eyes wide with shock, as she uttered his name in horror.

"Uchiha Itachi."

***

sorry, really short chappie, so heres another one!!!


	4. Chapter 4

another short chapter. sorry, but that is the way that i am writing this stroy, short chapters, and three perspectives.

itachi, sakura, then sasuke. then repeat, and rinse for the best results!!!

***

A greyish blue lump lay on the ground, bleeding and broken. The texture of the body looked rough, almost sandpapery, he observed, as he bent down, to snarl near the creature.

"Where is he?"

The lump moved, unfurling into a tall, once strong looking shark like man. The man chuckled, laughing as he coughed out blood, a deep, ragged wound in his stomach bleeding heavily.

"Where is whom…?" he coughed, know exactly who the younger man was talking about.

"Itachi." The younger man snarled again, his teeth bared, and eyes wild with anger, and vengeance. "Tell me where he is!" His eyes turned a deep red, spiralling with black comma's as he made the shark man feel the pain of his stomach a thousand times over.

The blue man coughed, his small, pin like eyes closing in pain, as he too, bared his teeth, but in a grimace of pain, his sharp, jagged teeth glinting in the rain.

"No."

Then the younger man gave a growl, and his eyes spun, furiously, as he dragged the information out the dying man's mind, causing as much pain as he could as he performed the mind technique. He smirked, a sinister and smug smirk, much like that of the man he was hunting.

"Hn." He stood up swiftly, watching the man below him die in pain. He showed no pity, no remorse, only satisfaction at his success. Nothing for the dying man below. Nothing but disdain, and pleasure.

"You got what you deserved, Akatsuki filth."

But there was no reply, only silence to his statement. Then, without a glance at the dead body, the younger man set off, leaping into the trees, and flying by the branches at breath taking paces, the storm and fury of nature not scaring him a bit, as he set off to kill a man he had vowed to kill.

The murderer of his family.

His own brother.

***

bum bum BUM!!!! R&R!!!!

waaaaaaaaa!!!!!! how could i!!!!???? i killed kisame!!!!! he is sooooooo funny though!!!!!!! waaaaaaaaaa!!!! it was not meant to happen this way!!!!!!!


	5. Chapter 5

ha ha...lol

Sakura time!!! fun fun to write!!!!

sakura is extremely worried and shocked in this chapter...

as you will find out...

***

She was horrified.

Correction, she was a prisoner.

Prisoner to Uchiha Itachi, the man who killed his whole clan in clean blood, except for one, his brother, a boy who used to be on her team. A boy who she used to have a crush on, who she had announced her love to… this man, he was the reason that the boy had left her, and her team, to betray them. To try and kill this man.

She sat across the table from him, looking down at the marble and ruby chessboard in front of her. She was playing chess. Playing chess with one of the most powerful, most dangerous, most handsome murderers of and before her time.

It was a position she had never imagined herself in.

Once she had gotten over her fear, and over her shock of being captive to Itachi, she had realised that he could have killed her a million times before, in a split second. It wouldn't take much effort from this deadly killer. But for some reason, he didn't. All that he did was steer her towards a smooth, leather chair, and sit her down in it, before sitting across from her, watching her. Inspecting her. Seizing her up.

That then had scared her. She had no idea why she was there. It couldn't be about Naruto. If they had wanted to use her as bait, they would have done it at a time where the Kyuubi was actually in Konoha, and subject to any news about his old friends, not when he was out, adventuring and experiencing the world.

His deep crimson eyes watched her.

She took in a breath.

Then moved her pawn into the line of fire. She knew that it would be taken, but that would leave her queen free to take down his knight. The price of battle, one prawn, for the life of a knight.

As nervous and frightened as she was, she preferred playing chess with the dark man in front of her, instead of sitting, in absolute silence, like they had been before. He had been fine with it, but she had been unnerved. All he had done was sit there, watching her, unmoving, studying her. It had creeped her out.

It had also, in some strange way, made her feel special. Not the part where he stared at her, and watched her, with those future seeing eyes of his, but the fact that he had chosen her. Not in the way that she liked it, but more in a way that she was… flattered? It wasn't the right word for it. She did not think that there was a word for the feeling that she got when she sat there, not knowing why he wanted her there, but for some reason, he only wanted her. That was why she had been the one told to go on the mission. The skills that were requested for the shinobi taking the package to have were specific.

The shinobi had to be a kunoichi, have knowledge on medical subjects and have perfect chakra control, look slightly… unique or different, and had to be capable of carrying the special package to the inn.

That left… only her.

Her pink hair could defiantly be described as 'unique', 'different' or 'exotic'. And green eyes to contrast with the natural hair colour just made her even better for the mission.

Defiantly a rigged mission.

***

ha... now the plot thickens... what did itachi want with her... and why did he rig up the mission... even more frightening... HOW DID HE RIG THE MISSION!!!???

so many questions... yet i have no idea of the answers... i am just writing what comes to mind...

R&R


	6. Chapter 6

Itachi is amused.

except for the fact that he seems to have something pushed up his ass, so he doesn't show it...

***

Itachi could almost laugh, if he was inclined to and thought that it was not below him to. The kunoichi was very interesting. She seemed scared out of her wits, yet was still able to analyse her situation and make the best of it, keeping her head in a hostile environment, when she knew nothing about why she was there, and had no chance of escape, leaving it that the only option for her was certain death.

She looked pleasing to his eyes too. Even though his eyesight was deteriorating because of his Mangekyo Sharingan, he could still see her brilliant naturally rosette hair, and her even brighter green eyes. He could see that she had pale skin, not a pallid pale, just a natural cream colour, with a glow of a healthy pink blush.

He was curious to see if it was as soft to touch as it looked, but he knew that it would be better if he kept the distance between himself and the girl-woman, at least for a while yet.

He referred to her as a girl-woman, because even though she had the curves and tone of a woman, she still had a child like innocence about her, and a fragile, delicate appearance. She was refreshing, compared to all of the other woman and kunoichi he had come across. Of course, most of them had been sent to try and seduce him, before killing him, but still, none of them were the same as the kunoichi.

Such a bundle of contraditions. The irony of her being the one that he had found as his queen.

He looked down at the board, amused at the direction of his thoughts. He had been playing this game with the kunoichi for less than an hour, and yet, already they had almost beaten each other over fifty two times, and still counting. He moved a rook and took down another pawn of hers, seeing that it would put her under pressure to defend her own knight, and go into defence mode instead of attack.

Of course, he could just move his queen away from his king, and in four moves to be exact, he would beat her. But there was no fun in that. It was not a bad game, in a way. She was a good player, although she had obviously only played the game a few times before. She was an intelligent player, planning moves far ahead of their time, and preparing for the worst outcome anyway, just to make sure.

That was how she had lasted so long.

A good player.

***

everytime i look at these chapters on ff, i think to myself, wow... what looked like so much writing on word... is reduced to this pathetic chapter, so everytime i put up one chapter, i will put up another!!!!

r&r, and tell me if you like that idea!!!


	7. Chapter 7

Sasuke is boring... there's nothing much to write in his little POV... it sucks...

***

Sasuke paused at the road where he was.

He could sense a familiar presence further ahead, towards the trees. It was still raining, pouring down, and the chakra signal was fading, showing that the person had gone, and only traces were left behind. But the chakra troubled him.

But only for a short time.

Then he steeled his thoughts, and willed himself to move on.

The chakra signal was that of Haruno Sakura.

His old team mate. The one and only girl in his gennin team, the girl that he had protected when ever there was a battle. She had been weak, and annoying, but her presence had always made him feel comfortable, as long as she wasn't trying to hug him, or crowd into his personal space. She reminded him of his mother. Kind, gentle, loving, compassionate.

And, though he would have never admitted it to her, beautiful.

But he had hardened his heart to memories of old. He forgot the twinge of pain and regret that he got at the thought of her face in pain, and his mother looking at him disappointingly. He was no longer that reserved, weak, childish boy, relying on his team mates and a village to give him power. He was now a cold, merciless avenger. He had only one thought now, one goal, one dream.

To kill the man who killed his family.

And if Haruno Sakura got in the way, he would kill her too.

***

geez... look out sakura, sasgay is in a baaaaaaaaaadddd mood...

R&R

oh, and if you are looking for humor, dont go to my stories, i am never funny, unless i am intentionally trying not to be funny...

go to IceCrystal7... much more amusing...!!! and if everyone reviews, then she will update!!! yaya!!! and that would make me happy, and make me update!!! yaya!!! updates all around!!!


	8. Chapter 8

T.T sorry guys... sakura is stupid... as you find out near the end... she might not be coming back to this story after this chappie...

O.O ~~~ dont look like this though... cause you know im just having you on... boredom is getting to me as i write this little author note at the top...

btw, my disclaimer is on my profile page... ha ha... *rubs back of head nervously and embarrassedly...* i always forget to put in a disclaimer on my stories...

***

Sakura rubbed her eyes, feeling tireder by the second. It was getting later. She was not sure what time, as the clock in the room showed no time, it was only a circle that ticked quietly in the corner. She could not think properly, and was losing the game. She knew that he could have beaten her ages ago, but for some reason Itachi had kept playing, ignoring the opportunities that he had to finish her off.

He was nothing like she had thought he would be.

There had been quiet conversation between them, as Sakura asked various questions, timidly at first, but with growing curiosity. She had thought, what the heck, I am going to die anyway, so I may as well get some satisfaction out of it beforehand.

She had asked him, "Why am I here?"

He had answered back, with a question of his own, "Do you not know why you are here?"

She had gotten annoyed and frustrated, as she thought that it was obvious that she had no idea, otherwise she would not have asked the question. She was not stupid. Upon telling him that, abet in… different word choices and tones, he had only nodded, and apologised, saying that he had not meant it in that way in the slightest, only that he was enquiring about why she thought that she was there.

He was polite, formal, and intimidating. So unlike what she had thought that he would be. Except for the intimidating part; someone who did not think that Uchiha Itachi would be intimidating would be a fool. She had thought that he would act uncivil and cruel to her, but he showed none of that, only calling her by the name 'Sakura-san', when she corrected him for calling her 'kunoichi'. He was intelligent, and kept a good, even if reserved, conversation and could play chess very well.

He did not threaten her at all, but listened to her talking, and added his own thought and opinions to what she was saying, looking into her eyes, all attention on her and listening as if he was genuinely enjoying their conversation. Although she could not read his emotions, she knew that he was not resisting the urge to kill her for talking to him, or saying too much.

He was like a blank slate, keeping his poker face on the whole time, and seeming politely interested and well-mannered. He never showed any emotion, even when Sakura got up the courage to ask a very hard question.

"Why did you kill them?"

***

gasp!!! how can you ask a personal question like that from a psyco killing machine!!! he will kill you!!!

or he might throw mashmellows at you...

either or ^.^


	9. Chapter 9

sorry, been a while since i last updated... been busy lately, not a good excuse i know, but what i can do? lie and make up one? nah, instead i'll just put up the chapter!!!

***

Itachi looked down at the kunoichi, keeping his face blank. He was mildly surprised that she had asked that question. It was a question that none had asked him when talking to him, other than Sasuke. They had all been too afraid of his reaction to ask, even though the curiosity had torn at them the whole time, and had probably left them thinking of possible reasons he had murdered his whole clan, in one night of violent bloodshed and massacre.

But there she was, looking at him, her emerald eyes unwavering, and her body posture taut, ready for the answer, even if she could not understand it or even comprehend the reasoning behind it.

"Hn…" Itachi thought about the question, his mind going back to that night, the one where he had seen his uncles and aunt rush at him, their weapons shining, and prepared to kill him. He could say that he acted in self defence. But that would be untrue. He had not enjoyed killing them, but as he did, he realised how much stronger he was than the whole clan. He could have taken them down with minimal effort, and he did. He could say that he did it to test his potential, to see how strong he really was, the same answer that he had given Sasuke. But she had heard that answer, and had still asked the question, so she must have guessed that it wasn't true.

Or he could tell her the truth. How the council had called him up for a meeting when he was younger, and asked him questions about his family. How they had probed him, thinking that he was too young, or not smart enough to realise what they were doing, hunting for information, even when he was an strong ANBU captain at the young age of thirteen. How his family had had secret meetings with the Uchiha, and planned and plotted things to do with numbers of people, and skill levels, and had shined and sharpened their weapons in preparation for battle.

How the Third had called him up one day, as the leader of the Leaf Village, and it's shinobi, and him as a protégé, the new up and coming ANBU captain, to give him a top secret mission, which would change the lives of the clan, and destroy them, forever.

"Are you sure that you want to know the answer to your question?"

He finally replied, scrutinising the young woman's body, seeing if she was willing to hear the story, see what he saw, even if it would sway her loyalties to her village, and shock her at the horror of that night. He looked into her eyes, seeing her deep, fierce, resolute will, and the inner strength that she had. He was compelled to tell her it, and to show her it. He was not sure why, but he wanted to, to see the look on her face when she figured out, and saw what had happened to drive him on the lonely path that he had taken.

When she answered, her tone was as firm as her look, and she voice steady, as she prepared herself for the worse.

"Yes."

Itachi paused, his expression calculating as he thought of the perks he could get for the truth. He wanted to cause as much pain as possible to Sasuke, to try and make his brother strive to be stronger, until he could kill Itachi… He finished thinking it through, before deciding what to tell her.

"Did you know that the Uchiha's were planning a coup against the Hokage and the council?" he kept his voice bland and unemotional.

It only took a few moments for her mind to figure it out. The silence was tense, and the electricity and anger radiating from the kunoichi-Sakura-san. He saw the understanding in her eyes, and then the disbelief and disgust as she realised what the council had done, to the clan, to Itachi and to Sasuke.

"They…" she tried to ask the question, but was too confused and shocked to say it. She could not believe that the old bastards had done that.

"They gave me an order to kill the clan." Itachi answered her unfinished question, and watched her reaction.

She closed her eyes, and then clenched her fists. "They ordered the murder of an entire clan, bar two, and thought that they could get away with it, without letting the village know. And the Third allowed it."

"I am not sure that he allowed it." Itachi commented, shrugging as he looked to the window. "But you are wrong."

Sakura looked at him, her face perplexed and exhausted as she shook her head. "I give in. I am too tired to guess anymore."

"They did get away with it."

Sakura looked at him, eyes wide with disbelief. "And you think that when I go back to Konoha that I will not be tell…ing… Oh…" she remembered then that she would probably not be going back to Konoha. She was too exhausted to try and fight the pricking sensation of her eyes, and ignored the trail of water that made it's way down her face, over her lips, an to her chin. She let her head fall forward, into her hands as she stayed silent, unwilling to sob.

In a sudden motion, she felt herself being lifted up, and moved in a rocking motion. Her eyes flew open, and she felt herself being carried bridal style by Itachi. She opened her mouth to say something, or shout something in protest… and then she breathed in the smell that was Itachi. It took all of her energy not to sniff the air like a dog, as his cologne and musk smell drifted to her nose. She closed her eyes again, giving in to the lulling swaying motion, and drifted off to sleep.

Not even the new knowledge that she had been given about the council could keep her awake.

***

now sakura knows the truth... but why would itachi tell her... hmmmm...

questions...

R&R!!!!


	10. Chapter 10

one long chappie, and one short chappie... balanced...

***

Sasuke made his way through the forest, following the path. He had the track, and knew where his brother was. He also knew where Sakura was too. They were in the same place.

A small part of his brain had cried out then, threatening Itachi if he had done anything to her. Although he felt like he had cut all ties with the leaf nin, he still had some value for her. She would be useful… hopefully. And she reminded him of his mother. That was the only reason he felt like that.

'Yeah… she reminds of you someone who died long ago… even though you have no idea what Sakura is like now, you still think that she will resemble your mother… Fool… Keeping old bonds tying you down… you will never kill your brother like this…' A snide, cruel part of his mind that sounded like Orochimaru spoke up, laughing at his simplicity.

Sasuke shook his head, trying to clear his mind of that annoying voice, and that nice part of himself. They would only get in the way.

He prowled over the last few trees, and then made his way to the beacon of light, coming from the inn. He would kill his brother, and avenge his family tonight.

***

Itachi paused in his tucking in of the pink haired girl-woman into the prepared bed. It would have to wait, as would sleep.

Sasuke was here.

***

He knew that he was here.

Itachi knew it.

Sasuke knew that Itachi knew it.

He had paused in his tucking in of Sasuke's old team mate, and was staring out the window, right at him. Sasuke froze, not in fear of being seen, but out of shock of seeing Itachi doing something so… domestic and intimate to someone… especially someone that Sasuke knew.

His brother was not caring. Nor was he loving or gentle.

He was a cold hearted, stone faced, … murderer. Sasuke could come up with a whole lot of worse words, but he knew that if he thought on it too much, then he would lose control, and try to attack Itachi too soon. He had a plan, but it was flexible, now that Itachi knew that he was there.

He would kill his brother tonight.

'Keep telling your self that…' That snide, cruel part of his mind chuckled. Sasuke shook his head, trying to clear away the thoughts, as he tried to find a reason to carry on. He had to kill his brother. His brother had murdered his family, and made him watch it through the sharingan.

He made up his mind, and decided.

There was no point in waiting. He would attack Itachi when Sasuke had an advantage. But until then, he would watch, and hide, and hope that Itachi would forget… even if the likelihood of that happening was almost none.

Or impossible.

***

what is sasuke's plan...

he doesn't have one!!!! lol!!!!

R&R


	11. Chapter 11

ha ha... dont kill me... very very short chappie... so i'll put up another two!!!! how does that sound???!!!

well, if anyone is wanting to know, the expression on Sasuke's face, is something like that of the dramatic chipmunk... look it up on youtube!!! ;D

***

Itachi found the look on his brother's face to be highly amusing.

His sharingan eyes were wide, his mouth open in shock, and then there was the indecisiveness that had passed across his face. It reminded him of when Sasuke was only a toddler. He had been so cute and lovable at that point… then he grew up, and the charm disappeared. An effect of his father, Itachi thought, and the consequence of having to grow up too fast. He had still been amusing at the age of eight, but not so much as what he was right at that moment.

As said, the overall effect of Sasuke's reaction, highly amusing.

***

see... short...

next chappie!!!! ----


	12. Chapter 12

here we are... longer chapter to make up for the short one!!!

***

Sakura felt herself running. She was dreaming, she knew that, but obviously her body did not think so, and her mind did not comprehend that fact.

She was being chased.

Fear was biting at her heels, making her try to run faster. But all that it made her do was panic, and stumble her heart pounding in fear and confusion as she tried to turn and see what it was that was chasing her. She ran as fast as she could, but she could feel the heat and wild, ferocious chakra hot after her. She recognised it, and wanted to stop, to turn and try and bring Naruto out of the state that he was in. To separate him from the demon that he had inside of him.

He was not a demon.

But someone kept her running, and pulled her along, lifting her back onto her feet when she tripped, his large, strong steady arms holding her up. He pushed her up, and made her run along in front of him, his presence at her back, encouraging her to go.

She felt her body lose all will to keep running, and then fear grown in her, as the overwhelming fiery chakra tried to consume her. She stumbled, falling to her knees, as she shook her head, denying the need to keep running, her weak body betraying her with tears. She cried, sobbing into her hands as she waited for her fate to come for her.

A voice spoke to her, from beside her, the man who had been encouraging her speaking up, so that his voice was not a monotonous drone in her ears, an unclear unfocused buzz, but a clear, strong, firm tone, telling her to stand up, and to keep running, that she must carry on.

Sakura started, the voice sounding too much like that of her old team mate. The only words that he had ever said to her, that were kind or encouraging was the last words that he said to her, before throwing everything that she had offered him, back into her face. His voice was low, and husky, only slightly out of breath from the running, but still calm, cool and emotionless as ever.

"Sas-" she looked up to his face, thinking that she knew what she would see, but she was wrong.

It was not Sasuke.

But he was related to Sasuke.

Itachi.

Uchiha Itachi was helping her, and urging her to run for her life.

She would think that the shock and jolt of disbelief would wake her up from her dream, but unfortunately, or 'fortunately' to her inner, she did not.

Instead, she sat there, looking up at him, like a stunned fish, as she was, and blinking slowly in amazement. He pulled her to her feet, his eyes honing in on her face, turning to the sharingan, as he glanced over his shoulder, dragging her along as he spoke quickly, speaking firmly as if she was dumb.

Which, in her current situation, she was.

"We need to go. Now. Haruno, snap out of it, and move. The village is under attack, as you know, because the Uchiha clan has staged their coup that they had planned years ago. They have attacked, and one of them has used his kekkei genkai to entrance the Kyuubi to do as he says. You need to run now!"

His voice was low, and Sakura found her self watching his lips more than listening to his words, only realising what he was saying, as he picked her up and dodged a flaming ball of fire that shot towards her. She jerked out of his hold, shocked out her wits even more than she had been before.

She nodded, trusting him.

Sure, he was meant to have killed his whole clan, and tortured his brother for kicks, under the order of her village's council. Sure, he had just said that the clan was alive. But she still trusted his words, and ran as fast as she could, with him following, and trusted him to cover her back, as she killed ANBU members that got in her way.

It was official.

She was mad.

But it was only a dream.

Right?

***

hmmmm.... only a dream huh?... let me decide that....

Sakura: it was only a dream... -_-

me: how do you know...? you were asleep!!!

Sakura: i woke up.

me: ...oh... oh well!!! R&R!!!!


	13. Chapter 13

Here we are!!! Next chapter!!!

One to make up for the shortest chappie I have ever, ever written… or wrote…

those two words confuse me…

***

Itachi watched the kunoichi sleep.

At first, she had looked so peaceful, so angelic… it was hard at that point to even comprehend that she was a dangerous kunoichi… but then again, looks were deceiving. But as the night went on, her positioning changed, her peaceful, serene expression clouded, and her eyes fluttered rapidly, a sign of somewhat disturbing dreaming…

She was twitching, and murmuring under her breath, and if Itachi had been paying more attention to her, he would have heard her murmuring his name a couple of times, and saying 'what the hell?!!!' under her breath.

It was a good thing then, that he was paying attention.

***

"What the hell!?!! She muttered angrily, as she saw one of the ANBU pull of their mask and look at her. It was Sai, but his face held some emotion, or at least, more than what it normally held.

It held regret and pain, as he came towards her, his katana held high over his head, as he rose it up to swing down at her, and effectively, kill her. She watched as he did so, and as the sword cut through the air, whistling as it did, as she admired the strength of the swing and the speed that it was travelling. Of course though, it seemed quite slow to her eyes, as she found herself watching everything in slow motion.

Then, Sai was gone, fallen to the ground by a kunai in her hand.

Sakura looked at her hand in astonishment, and then at Sai's fallen body. She was even more perplexed. Her dream just got stranger and stranger. First with Itachi calling her by her last name, like she was under his command, and then with the Uchiha clan being alive, and then with Sai. It did not make sense.

"Come on. We have to go, if we want to live. Orders are orders." Itachi appeared again, his hand on her shoulder, as he pulled her along, darting through trees at high speeds, and dodging kunai and branches like they were troublesome flies.

Then, another familiar figure launched it's self at her, looking at her with his one eye confused.

"Sakura… Why did you…?" the question was left unspoken as she moved, leaping over him and running for her life. Itachi was behind her, the words that he had spoke to her as Kakashi had tried to ask her something, still fresh in her ear.

"Run. Don't trust them."

So she did; without question. She followed his lead, and his words to the point, even thought it was going against the words of her sensei.

Stranger and stranger.

Kakashi darted out from the trees in front of her, Itachi darting out of sight as the silver haired man turned up. He panted, looking at Sakura with the same expressions as before.

"Why?" he asked, looking at her with shock and horror.

"Why what?" she was dumbfounded to find that her voice was cold, colder than Itachi had been, colder than any voice that she had ever heard before. Freezing, tongue catching, cold. Emotionless and unidentifiable.

"Why? You know why!!!?"

His voice was uneven, harsh, and cruel to her ears. Then it all came back to her. Broken memories of dead bodies, her parents dead and bleeding on the ground. Their cries and pleading for mercy and asking her why she was doing it.

It scared her, but she could not show it.

"Why?" she repeated, her voice mocking and sarcastic. "Because they were fools. Because they tried to control me, and stop me from doing what I wanted. They had no right to do so, to try and control my life, and tell me what to do." Then there was the unspoken words, which he never heard.

_Because I was ordered to._

_***_

Slightly disturbing dream much??? Yep…

Sakura got thrown into Itachi's shoes… fun…

Well, it'll all add up… sooner or later… when I actually know what happens…


	14. Chapter 14

Here we are… wakey wakey, rise and shine Sakura!!!!

btw people, i may not write for a while, or i might have heaps of updates in the next few weeks, depending on how i... cope or deal with something.

My dog has been 'diagnosed' with cancer, and has strained a ligament in her leg, so she is not very happy, and unfortunately, there is not too many options. the cancer looks like it has already spread, so we have a limited time with her left, and the cost of operating to fix both her leg and to remove the cancer is big, and the chance of her actually getting better is doubtful. also the stress from all the operations would not be good for her either.

honestly, there is only really one long term option.

i am very sad, as she has been with me for ten years, and was one of my 'birthday pressies'. she is a springer spaniel, so she lives about an average of thirteen, or so years (my gestimate from how long my grandma's dog lived) so i thought that i would have another few years with her yet, but sadly, that does not seem the case.

so all depending on whether i spend time with her, or try to forget the fact that she is ill, i might/ might not spend alot of time writing. please forgive me if i don't update soon then, and i hope you guys understand. it may not be as big as a 'person' dying, but she is as good as one, and is a part of my family.

thanks, i'll let you read now...

***

Sakura sat up, her breath short as she tried to slow her pumping heart, it fluttering in her chest like a hummingbird. Her breath came in short, ragged, tearing breaths, as she tried to get more oxygen into her lungs, her chest heaving up and down, labouring to gain a slower rhythm. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she did so. Her emotions were still running high, the chemicals released in her body, still operating, and the side effects of it still affecting her body. She was scared, angry, happy, confused and regretful, all at the same time!!! A new record!!!

The fear was easy to explain. Running for your life, when you can barely remember why you are, while being chased by old friends and comrades who, funnily enough, are trying to kill you. Hmmmm... not too hard to explain the fear at all. It was a little hard to fight against all comrades, when you did not want to hurt them... Especially when they had no objections about hurting you.

Anger; more frustration, but still the feeling had the same reasoning and effect. She was angry with whoever ordered her to kill her whole family, and angry at herself for following through with it. Frustration that she could have done nothing to prevent it, and the feeling of helplessness that came with it, as she was forced to watch, her hands tied, as her parents died by her own hand, begging for mercy and for their lives, asking her why she was doing this to them.

Regret. She killed her own FAMILY!!!! HELLO??!!?!! Easy enough to figure out. Regret that she should have done anything, anything at all, to stop it, and the looks on her friends faces as she attacked, and ran, the betrayal and pain that was there, in both parties.

It was the happiness that was... Strange to say the least. Something to do with freedom, and being in control again. Also when Itachi grabbed her hand... Sakura felt her heart jump, and then changed her thoughts. Next emotion.

The confusion came from the dream its self, as she had an idea of why she had it, but was not so sure on the perspectives. The best way for her to explain it would be like this; being given a book, with the whole beginning missing, and the ending. Only the peak point of the action and a little bit before and after left for her to read. She was sure that she had been put in Itachi's 'shoes' and was repeating what he had to go through, but she was not sure if all the other feelings and actions involved, he had to go through as well...

"That must have been some nightmare."

Itachi's voice was familiar now, especially after that dream. Where had once been frightening, and reminded her, somewhat, of Sasuke's voice, husky, dark, alluring... and so forth... it had changed meanings for her. From the voice of a deadly, S-class criminal to... what exactly? She was not sure how she saw him now... after spending time with him, and learning how he thought. It had become almost soothing to her ears, as it had been the one identifiable thing in her dream. Everything else was too… strange for her to take in.

She groaned, realising that she would never get back to sleep now. When she said her thoughts out loud, Itachi gave her a strange look, as if she was stupid.

She glared back at him, her expression dark and offended, she had already had him look at her like that in her dream, and was not liking being subjected to that look again. She had never liked people who underestimated her, as she was a strong, independent, self reliant woman, not some damsel in distress, or the stupid, bubble brained fan girl that she had once been.

"I have already been insulted by you before I woke up, and I don't need it after I wake up as well, thank you very much."

He blinked, his eyes bleeding to a red colour as he tilted his head at her, looking confused. Well, he didn't actually look confused. Uchiha's were never confused. He did look at her, with a small amount of interest though, which did count as curiosity, and confusion. Or at least for him. Sakura was getting good at reading Uchiha's emotionless expressions, considering that Sasuke was her team mate, and that she had been trapped with Itachi for God knows how long.

"And when was it that I did that?" he inquired, his tone politely mystified. Sakura went pale. She had let that one slip out. The plan had been to not let him know that he had starred in her dream, and had saved her life in it... for the obvious reasons. She had no idea how he would react to that. As it was already, she was beginning to find him irresistibly attractive. She did not need him to guess that as well.

"Um…"

'This is a hard one…' her inner admitted, not wanting to tell him about her dream. 'How do we bluff our way out of this…?'

"My drea- nightmare."

'Good job Sakura. When in doubt, tell him that he was the star of your nightmare.' Her inner was very sarcastic at that point and time. 'It is sure to scare him off from you… unless he is some psycho crazy guy who kills for fun… that's right. He is!!!' Her inner proceeded to hit her head against a brick wall, hoping that she could kill off enough brain cells so she would have no idea of what was happening.

"Hn." Itachi made the famous Uchiha response. He looked at her, his eyes amused, and his eyebrows lifted above his eyes, making him look at her with some doubt. He did not doubt about the nightmare part, and was not surprised that he was in it, considering the amount of time she had been forced to spend with him... It was just the slight hesitation and small mishap when she went to say 'nightmare'. It sounded like she was going to say dream before that.

"Yeah…" There was an awkward silence. Sakura's inner made hand motions inside her head, muttering, 'Awkward turtle moment…'

***

Yep… couldn't resist the turtle… I think people over do it with the whole…

1 Awkward squid

2 Awkward muffin

3 Awkward squid muffin hybrid…

THERE IS ONLY THE AWKWARD TURTLE!!!!!

thanks again guys, hope i'll update soon, if i do, i do, if i dont, i dont.

Okay… I'm done now!!! R&R!!!


	15. Chapter 15

Hey guys! sorrry long time, no write...

well, heres a chappie for you, but i was very disappointed in the little number of reviews that i got for the past few ones, compared to the numbers that came up on traffic... =(

you making me sad... =( my wonderful feeling of loyalty to writing for you guys is slowly dying... help me live and send me reviews!!!

i will give you cookies?!!! ;) lots and lots of virtual cookies and chocolate!!! cause who doesn't like choccie!!!

***

Itachi let out a small laugh and chuckle, which he covered up with a cough. He found the idea that the pink haired girl, who had acted so brave in his presence before, had dreamed about him, amusing. Then again, he found everything about the girl-woman amusing. She held more interest to him, than what anyone, or anything had ever done so before. Speaking about people… he mused.

Kisame had been gone for a long time. Sasuke had more than likely killed him. That… concerned and revived Itachi, in a way that he had never felt before. Sasuke was stronger, meaning that Itachi was so much closer to having his plans fulfilled. As much as he felt… well… he didn't feel much at Kisame's death.

Kisame was a good partner, and Itachi respected him, and his memory. As partners, they became close, or as close as any two lethal assassins could, as a male and male, and with no 'relationship' as such. They were killers, not best friends. They did their job, and had each other's backs in a fight. If one of them died, who knew what horrible partner the one still living would get… Kisame was not or any personal interest to Itachi, unlike his brother, and the woman-child.

She was much more entertaining than what Kisame was, and Kisame was pretty amusing at times, with his quick temper and joker attitude. Itachi was finding himself drawn in to the woman-child's charms, watching her reactions and noting things about her or future reference. Not that he was planning to have any type of future with her, he rationalised, but still.

His brain and mind could not help but wonder… What it would be like, if he had gone against the councils wishes, or if he had worked harder, and tried harder, to make them choose another option. He had known that the Hokage had been against the massacre, and it had always confused him as to why the man had let it happen. He had always thought that the Hokage had been outvoted, or had seen that either way, it would not end well… but there was a bothersome doubt in his mind. If he had not killed the clan, and if he had stayed in Konoha, and continued with his life as a shinobi of the leaf… where would he have gone?

He could see that he would have become strong, almost as strong as what he was now, maybe not as much as now though, because of the killer instincts and experience that he had gained, being a missing nin. He would have been an ANBU captain… more than likely in a team of ANBU members… guessing, or judging by the shinobi that he had fought against, he would have been put in with a weapons expert, maybe another person with a kekkei genkai, more than likely a tracking trait… a Inuzuka, maybe even Hana if he was lucky.

Who would he have met in the time staying there… would his brother's team be the same, with the loud, but optimistic and cheerful presence of the Kyuubi holder who had managed to form a bond with his younger brother? What about the fascinating pink haired medic? Would she have still gone to Tsunade for training, and become as strong as what she was now, if his younger brother had never left the village. Would he have been drawn towards her, as she, his younger brother's team mate, grew to know him as the loyal, stoic and dangerous shinobi that he would have been… He stopped any of those thoughts, and went back to his previous line of thought.

No matter how tempting the fruit was, he could not think back on what could have happened. It was too late, he had already made the choice, and done what he felt he had had to do. As much as he could see the pink haired woman, walking towards him, the same peaceful, genuine smile on her face that he had glimpsed at… he would not have it. She would never be the one to welcome him with open arms, and to softly heal him back to health, and watch out for him on a mission.

She was too fascinating.

The way that she scrunched up her nose as she thought, and bit her lips to stop herself from saying anything rash. The pout and frown that accompanied the realisation that he was laughing at her. Her open book expressions and the emotion that was written all over her face, and her expressive eyes, the way they darkened with emotions, and then brightened with joy or happiness, the dark, furious anger, and wide, doe eyed shock that had come to her face as he had described what he had been ordered to do.

A good liar can lie with their eyes… but Itachi knew that this one would never be able to do that. He looked at her, the blush rapidly spreading across the tops of her cheeks at the awkward silence that hung between them. There was a small, slight fraction of hesitation hovering there, as if she wanted to act, but was unsure, and her eyebrows tilted closer together, her confusion shown in the slight worry wrinkle adorned between them.

She was embarrassed.

And he knew it.

He found himself thinking about her reactions more and more, and analysing them to find out why she looked as she did when he said a particular thing, or why she blushed when he stood too close, or touched her forehead, or pointed out something about her. One minute, she was a spitfire, nothing too serious, only a bad temper and a sharp tongue, then a second later, dangerous shinobi, determined and furious, one that he would have to keep an eyes on, and then the next, a shy, timid girl, confused and lost to what she was meant to be doing, and how to act. She was a walking contradiction.

Even more amusing than Sasuke.

Then, it hit him.

Sasuke.

He had forgotten about his brother.

He had let his guard down for one instant.

One moment of time had passed, in all of time, as Itachi thought these thoughts. His brain was very fast, and broke things down, dissecting, evaluating and over thinking them in milliseconds. He had let his guard down, for what exactly? To think about this pink haired young woman, who was meant to be nothing more than a pawn in his game…?

***

hmmmm... and here we have the beginning of the end... or is it the beginning of the beginning...? who knows....

Itachi's feelings will be discovered in more depth later in the chappies, so review back, so that they get put up soon!!!


	16. Chapter 16

Hey guys!!! I got some loooooonnnng chappies set up for you guys!

I'm a bit ahead of schedule… not that I have one, but you know what I mean, when I say that…

Sooooo… I thought that I would be nice and put up lots of chappies at once!!! Yay for me!!!

Soo… if I don't get at least… lets make the number… 10 reviews for this chapter and the next how ever many that I put up at the same time, then I will never, ever, ever! Do this again.

… no pressure!

***

Sasuke saw the look in Itachi's eyes, as his guard went down. It seemed that he was more relaxed when he was with Sakura, as he let his guard down, and considered her to be no threat. Sasuke was even more surprised that she was still around the older Uchiha, considering the fact that, A) Itachi was an S-class criminal, B) that he could kill her at any time, and C) that he was a traitor to Konoha.

Even worse, she was blushing when she look at Itachi. It made Sasuke feel like the world had gone mad. Like the Third Shinobi War had began, and nobody actually knew it. It was… indescribably… alien to him.

Could it be… that she was attracted to him?!! that she was slowly falling for the cold, marble Adonis that was Itachi Uchiha? It was impossible! Crazy! Insane! He did not know what had come over his thoughts for him to think that. Highly and probably unlikely.

Maybe it was because she was subconsciously comparing Itachi to him, the similarities and look alike would be an immediate source of attraction… BUT HE WAS A KILLER!!!!

Itachi was insane. That was the only reason for it. It also explained why he had killed the clan. Insanity. Loss of 'marbles', going off his rocket, losing his head, and going as mad as a hatter. Crazy, insane, mad, foolish.

Sasuke had seen Sakura smash down walls with her bare fists. She was strong, and talented, and was perfectly fine with making her feelings and wants known and heard. Not mention, followed. Itachi must have her under some type of genjutsu. That was the only logical rationalization that he could come up with, to why she was still there.

He blinked, the thoughts washing down the drain as he watched Itachi talk and converse with the pink haired kunoichi, and he planned. His brain ticked as he began thinking it over… the plan could work, he just needed the right moment, and a good distraction.

He had found his advantage.

***

Itachi looked down at the kunoichi, feeling a feeling that he had not felt in years.

Guilt.

He sighed deeply, knowing that he would regret his kind, out of the norm gesture.

He opened his eyes, the tamoe in them spinning slowly, as he looked into the bright jade eyes of the kunoichi. He liked her eyes. They reminded him of the pebbles and smooth stones at the bottom of his mother's old lily pound, their deep, shimmering jade green depths soothing and beautiful. Captivating and entrancing. They were interesting. Everything about the kunoichi he found interesting though.

"If you want me to, I can use the sharingan to put you back to sleep. The sleep will last six hours, and will be dreamless, or nightmare free in your case." He offered, waiting for her answer. She would be mad to say-

"Yes, please. That would be great."

Itachi choked.

Sasuke, who had been reading their lips, choked.

Sakura's inner, who had been egging her on, cheered, laughing like a maniac in her head.

Itachi discretely made it look like he had to cough again, as if he had never choked, and was not currently shocked out of his wits by the very example and contradiction of a true shinobi in front of him.

She was perfect as an example, in her loyalty to her village, her reaction to stress and pressure, and her handling of a hard, loss-loss situation. And then she would go and trust the enemy without a second thought, and did not once try to escape like any sane shinobi would. She was too innocent and naïve to be a shinobi. He doubted that she had even learnt to key points of being a kunoichi; how to use her body as a weapon.

Crazy woman-child.

He stood, moving himself to the desk in the room, sitting on it, and thinking deeply, his eyes staring into space. The chessboard sat on the desk. He had moved it up here. He did not know why he did so, but there was something, some instinct urging him to do it, so he listened.

She moved, standing up from the bed, and walking over to him, so that she was standing in front of him, her head tilted back so that she could look up at him. She was much shorter than him, he realised, and it made her look that much more vulnerable.

"How does it work?" she asked, looking at him, her eyes alight with scholarly interest.

"Your brain works on different wave lengths or frequencies depending on what you are doing. It is on the Beta length when you are thinking, or are alert and working, and then Alpha as you relax and reflect, then Theta as you grow drowsy, and lastly the Delta length as you fall asleep, and deeper into the Delta. What my sharingan does is pull you out of whatever state that your mind is in, and put you into the Theta wave length or even straight into Delta…"

Itachi trailed off, wondering to himself why he was even bothering to explain it to her. Normally he would just grunt and ignore the question, even if he had been raised to be better than that… this girl was making him think and say things that he had not thought or done in a long time… she made him feel… almost normal.

"But wouldn't putting someone straight into the Delta wave length cause damage to their brain, and could permanently put them in the Delta state?" Sakura sat on the edge of the bed that she was on, and looked at Itachi, her eyes wide with curiosity. She had been working on an experiment about the brain, and trying to figure out a way to dispel illusions such as the sharingan. This was a good opportunity for her to find out more.

Itachi just shook his head, his eyes showing some surprised admiration. He had not expected the kunoichi to pick that up, although from what he had heard, she was a medic nin. And she was certainly smart and intelligent enough. He refused to tell her why though, as it would give away the hard kept secrets of his kekkei genkai.

She pouted, and then laughed, accepting him answer. She nodded her head in understanding.

"I get it… you don't want me to know your secrets… I mean, really though, it's not like I will be able to tell anyone, is it? You will more than likely end up killing me sooner or later." She noted, watching his reaction for clues to his intentions of her.

He stiffened slightly, and then relaxed again, looking warily at the pink haired female in front of him. She was officially insane, he concluded. She had accepted his answer so quickly, without pushing it, even though she had nothing to lose by pushing it, and she seemed to accept the fact that he would kill her after this whole thing as well…

"You think that I am going to kill you?" he asked lightly, even though he already knew the answer to that question. What he really wanted was an explanation, or for her to clarify why she thought that.

"Yes."

Not quite the full explanation he was wanting.

"Why?"

He kept his tone cold, and uncaring.

"Why what?" she looked at him, her head tilted to one side questioningly.

"Why do you think that?"

"Were you not going to kill me, after telling me one of the secrets that you vowed not to tell, or have protected with your life?" she looked at him, the tilt of her head even more pronounced as she stared through him, her eyes seeming to see as much as that of the sharingan and the Hyuuga's eyes.

He did not answer her. She took his silence as agreement, and a confirmation of her thoughts.

"Exactly."

"So why do you act like you do now?" he was even more confused. This silly little kunoichi had managed to have him confused and actually trying to figure her out. It was a rare event. He could classify people in to groups and identify their weaknesses and strengths in a second, but here was this… this… mere girl-woman… child… person… who he had known and held captive for around the space of… he used his internal watch… seventy two hours and he still had not figured her out.

Stranger and stranger.

"Why do you act like you do now?" she retorted, her eyes alight at their little debate. They twinkled and danced as he thought about her question, and asked himself the exact same thing.

Why was he acting like this…?

It made no sense to him.

Why was he making such an effort to try and figure her out?

Then, it came to him, in the simplest possible way.

***

*gasp!*

What is Itachi's realisation?!! Did he suddenly realise that he was in love with Sakura, and that they could elope, and run away somewhere, after faking their own deaths, and then get married and have lots of wonderful sharingan wielding pink haired babies!!!

I wish.


	17. Chapter 17

Loooooooooonnnnng chapter!!!! Here it is!!!

I have many ready, so try for 10 chapters, and I will put them out!!! Other wise…

…

Anyway, here is a little sneak preview into Itachi's mind, and how he thinks...

***

Sakura watched as Itachi thought about her question, before his face smoothed over, and he looked back at her understanding in his eyes. He pushed the chess board onto the table, his long, accurate fingers playing with the pawns.

"Why do you play chess?" he asked, his red eyes watching her.

She looked down at the board, avoiding his eyes. She had no idea where they were going with this conversation. One moment they were talking about the sharingan, and going to sleep, the next about their actions and the reasons behind them. It was sometimes very hard to keep up with the Uchiha protégé.

"I play it because I enjoy it." She answered, wondering how that would relate to his actions. Was he acting civil towards her, because he enjoyed it? Or because he liked her company? It still made no sense…

"Hn…" he nodded his head slowly. "Yes… and no…"

She looked at him. He looked at the chess piece in his hand, spinning it lightly in his digits.

"I enjoy chess… but it is not just the game that I like. It is the skills and thinking required to play the game, and the satisfaction of winning a good game of chess. Even when playing a bad player, you can still play with them, instead of the game. You can manipulate them, and let them think that they have the upper hand, and then turn it all around on them, and prove yourself to be the better player."

It was then, that it all clicked into place, and Sakura truly understood the killing machine that was Uchiha Itachi. While Sasuke was driven on by revenge, Itachi was driven on by that feeling that he had been brought up with having, and the drive to achieve; a challenge. He had not been lying at all when he had said to Sasuke that he was testing his talents on the rest of the Uchiha clan.

He felt regret, and pain for the deaths, but also a twisted satisfaction that he was right, and that he had managed to outwit the whole of the Uchiha clan. She could see how much it had cost him though, and had to wonder whether he had weighed up all the options and seen whether it was worth it. She wondered if he had ever wished that he had not done it, and that nothing had changed, that the Uchiha clan had not tried to plan a coup. That he was not forced to grow up so fast.

He had become an ANBU captain at the age of thirteen. Sakura, at the time, had been eight, fresh at the academy, deciding to become a shinobi because she wanted to make a difference and show her parents that she was better than what she was, to try and keep up with the girl that she had meet, the Yamanaka, and then when she had turned thirteen, she had been the once fan girl, reformed kunoichi who had vowed to protect her team mates. She had not killed, nor been in a true battle, on in which she was alone, and had to rely on only herself, other than the chunnin exam.

She had never been through what he had been through. She could only imagine and guess at what he was really like, under the mask of indifference, the passive, cold unwelcoming face.

"I see…" she muttered, her insight coming to her in one sudden moment of comprehension. "You do not lie… you tell the truth, yet no one believes you... manipulation… you make them think what you want them to think…"

Itachi looked at the girl sitting across from him in new light. He had known that she was extremely insightful, but she saw straight through him, and had him figured out before he did she.

"So, is it all games to you?"

He shook his head, not as the answer, but at the question. "No. You tell me why you are acting as you do now. Do you find the idea of being killed 'enjoyable'?" he looked at her, his eyes unconvinced, his whole body posture sceptical.

She laughed, thinking that he must think her to be mad.

"No. Not in the slightest. I am not completely mad." She snorted, not believing that the man across from her would actually believe that she wanted to die.

He coughed lightly, the cough not real, but a fake sound, showing his doubt.

"Not completely mad…? So you are somewhat, out of your right mind…?"

She rolled her eyes, looking at him with some disapproval in her eyes. "Do you really think that any sane person would put their life on the line like we shinobi do? Are any of us sane?"

"Hn."

"Define what you mean by your previous question?" she asked, looking at him, her eyes bright, as they had been all evening… or what ever time it was. It was still to dark for her to tell what time of the day it was.

"My previous question?" he looked down at her, his tone slow, as if he was talking to someone who was thick, and his voice marred with patronisation. They had been talking, or more debating, with all sorts of questions. He had asked her a question right before she did, but he got the feeling that it wasn't that question that she was talking about…

"Yes. The one about, 'So why do you act like you do now?'" she copied his voice, or rather, tried to copy it, changing it slightly to make it huskier and deeper, with a slight odd tone to it. She looked at him, as he lifted his eyebrows at her, him thinking that she was mad, her thinking that he was too.

"You act… strangely, to say the least." He clarified, reclining back in his leather chair to look down at her.

She laughed, looking at him her nose crinkled up as she got the point, with no help from him. "I act like a fool, because I think, if I am going to die, I may as well die happy, or at least make my last moments… memorable." She closed her eyes, leaning forward on her hand, her inner suggesting naughty things to her as she watched the deadly, graceful man in front of her, study her right back.

Her inner laughed, purring in a cat like way at the man. 'Why don't you just pounce on him now… then you would be making your last moment memorable…'

'Yes, true, but I'm not dead yet, and I am not in a critical or near death situation.' She snorted, not realising that she had done so out loud, and then watched as Itachi smirked at her, his eyes dark, warm and amused.

It was then that she noticed that there was something different about him. She could not figure it out, but he had changed. Maybe it was his eyes, or his face. But something had changed. She liked it. She felt a warm, bubbling feeling in her stomach, threatening to make her flush with the heat of it.

"Did you just use a henge?" she asked, resisting the urge to reach her hand out and touch him, to make sure. It would be all too easy to give in to the temptation.

'You keep telling yourself that that is why you want to touch him…' her inner taunted gleefully.

He looked at her, his gaze penetrating.

"No."

"Oh… I just thought… you looked different… that was all." Sakura felt her face go red, and that traitorous blush of hers burn up through her cheeks, despite her best efforts. She hated how it did that. When ever she was embarrassed or nervous, her face would give her away. Then she consciously took the effort to will herself to stop biting her bottom lip.

It was another sign or her discomfort.

A sign that Itachi picked up on.

"Do you want me to use my sharingan to make you go to sleep?" his question was blunt, not worried or curious, just a blank question, which he did not really care about. He didn't care at all. He was Uchiha Itachi, he cared for no one, or nothing, and he only did things to please or further himself. He suited himself, and that was that.

He thought that she must be tired, to have been so blind and so foolish to think that he was using a henge. He did not make the hand signs for it, for a start. And then there was the fact that she would have known if he had used a genjutsu or something. Why would he want to use a henge? There was no point?

Then, he realised something. She was acting too… content. Not like a normal 'prisoner', not like she was being held here against her will, but more like she was here to visit an old friend of hers. And he found that he was acting partially the same. He was weakening, falling prey to the rose hued girl's charm, and letting her take control. He had thought that he was unaffected by her, but as time wore on, he found he was wrong.

Uchiha Itachi making a mistake.

Suddenly, the game that he was playing began to tire him.

He was beginning to become too comfortable.

He wanted to win.

He had to finish the game, defeat his opponent, before he lost sight of the prize.

He wanted it over.

He wanted his brother to look at him, horror and understanding in his eyes, as he realised what his 'precious' Konoha had done to him. To see that he had had sacrificed everything, for his younger brother's safety, and to save him. where Sasuke was meant to die, along with every other member of the clan.

He wanted it done.

He wanted the council to realise their mistakes with horror, as they found that they had underestimated him; again. Uchiha Itachi did not make mistakes, and he certainly did not make any move without a reason behind it. They were few times in his life that he had ever acted on impulse.

But it was not the council whom he was avenging against. It was another, more ancient, more deadly and cunning foe and ally who he wanted to destroy. He would do it himself, as he thought, if you want the job done right, do it your self, but there was one problem with that. He would not be strong enough. His eyes were weakened, his need to survive almost gone, his will to carry on dwindling. His body had been put through the paces, as had his mind. The ambition of the Uchiha clan had struck again, proving that once again, patience and planning was better than hasty attempts, and pushing forward without full preparation.

He had learnt from those actions though, thanks to his mother.

Checkmate.

***

Itachi is deeeeeep…

Cough cough.

**ATTENTION ALL READERS!!! ATTENTION ALL READERS!!!**

Readers, please review… it makes my day.


	18. Chapter 18

The return of the short chapter!!! Dun dun daaaaaaaa!!!

Don't worry, the next ones are really, really long!

***

Sakura watched, as Itachi's eyes glazed over, and she saw that he and his thoughts were far away. She watched as his eyes bleed, changing to that deep, bloodied crimson, and she saw him turn them on her, his focus on her now, fully towards her. His eyes were beautiful, intriguing, and intense, as he turned his gaze to her. She had always been fascinated by the sharingan, but she had always put that down to the fact that her old ex sensei had somehow acquired one, and that Sasuke had them as well. She remembered the times that she had seen him use it, the one most frightening and well evoked time in the Forest of Death, as he had fended the sound nin off from her.

She felt no fear as she looked into his eyes.

It could have been the feelings of being protected that she felt non of the self preservation that she should have naturally felt. Kakashi and Sasuke had both used those same type of eyes to protect her with, and she had almost never been attacked by the eyes. she had never been pulled into the hypnotising pull of the dojutsu that the eyes possessed, and had never fallen under the genjutsu that was known as the Tsukuyomi. Itachi had used that on both Sasuke and Kakashi. But he would not use it on her, she was sure of it.

She trusted him.

And it scared her.

She was not stupid, she was far from it, but something had happened, something had dulled her senses and dulled the knife edge that was her skill, her intelligence, her wits and her common sense. She wondered when it was that she had begun to trust him. She was stupid, she realised, her consciousness fading, her eyes turning to black.

Why did I trust him…?

"Why…?"

***

Her murmur was quiet, as she fell forward, her head falling onto the desk with a soft thump, as he caught the rest of her body, and walked over to put her on the bed.

Check…

Mate…

***

Now.

***

… who is thinking that I wonder…

What is the plan…?

Reviews make me happy, and a happy writer, means an inspired writer, which then in turn means more writing. Which then means more reviews and so forth… the circle of stories… or the writing cycle...

So be kind, and continue the writing cycle with your reviews today.


	19. Chapter 19

To those of you who guessed it, it was Sasuke thinking 'Now'

Good job guys!!!

***

Sasuke flew through the window, landing in the room, and darting towards his brother, his sword in hand as he slashed at the elder Uchiha. he was swift and silent, moving fast with confidence and deadly accuracy. After all, he had a few advantages over his brother, and milt them till he could not use them no more.

Itachi had a body in his hands.

Sasuke did not.

Itachi was tired, as he had just used his sharingan.

Sasuke was not.

But even though all the odds were against him, Itachi still managed to dodge the sword, slashing towards him, cutting through the air. He managed to hold onto the pink haired woman in his arms, and move out of the window, leaving his younger, more foolish brother standing in the room.

Sasuke snarled, as he realised that he had missed, and that he was alone in the room. He leapt out of the window, and onto the grass, landing with a soft noise, as quiet as a cat. He straightened, trying to search for his target, as he looked around him, his eyes a deep red.

Then he saw it. The flash of pink hair, as he former team mate unwittingly gave away Itachi's position. He saw the flash of kunai, and dodged them, as he fell into a trap. A genjutsu.

He saw the death of the clan again, as it had played out so many times when he had fought his brother. But it was changed, so that Sakura was standing with his eight year old self, and Itachi appeared out of nowhere, stabbing Sakura in the gut.

Sasuke hardened himself to not flinch as he saw Sakura cry out in a soundless scream of pain, as Itachi flashed around her body, his speed so fast, that he was only a blur, no even see-able. He forced himself to watch as she fell, Itachi standing over her with his mask of stone on, no emotion in his eyes as he killed the pink haired girl.

The younger Sasuke, the one from his memories, knelt by Sakura, shaking her, trying to get her up, as Itachi stalked him, appearing behind him, and capturing him in his sharingan.

And the whole vision repeated, again, and again, and again, until Sasuke had fallen to his knees, a tear falling from his eye. As much as he had tried to harden himself, the sight of his clan being killed, over and over again had an effect. One that crushed him and his walls, letting out all of his emotions.

"Still too weak."

Itachi stated, looking down on his brother with no emotion. He would have been looking with disgust, if he had had the heart to. But he could not be bothered, he was tired with these games, and wanted to end this, once and for all. But the way Sasuke was going, it didn't seem like he would get his wish that time.

Oh, to die…

He wanted to pass the burden that he had been carrying on. Even though he did not want his brother to end up like him, tired, weary and broken, Itachi felt the need to be selfish rise within him. Everything that he had done, the decision to carry out the assassination of the clan, his taunting and pushing, his timing of attacks, they all had to be done to benefit and protect his foolish younger brother. For once, he wanted to do something he desired, something for himself, instead of his brother. Itachi glanced towards the pink haired girl, an idea in his mind. The plan formed, and he began to carry it out.

"You still have too many… attachments I see. They make you weak. Look at you now, for instance. You are on your knees before, just because of something you have seen time and time again. Weak. Not strong enough to even come close to killing me. Weak. Pathetic. Not even worth my time."

Gloating and taunting seemed to work well with his little brother, who had a strong sense of pride, even if there was no honour with it. He knew that his little brother would rise to the bait. He had several attachments to the Konoha shinobi, bonds that he could not break. Itachi figured that even if Sasuke was trying to break the bonds, if the people he was bonded to did not let the bonds break, or tried to hold them together, the bonds would still be there, no matter what.

"Shut up!" Sasuke snarled, glaring at the killing machine standing above him. He growled, snarling threats under his breath as he pulled himself together, flipping back off the ground, and onto his feet, his hands flying through hand signs as he summoned his chakra to the seals.

His older brother would not get to laugh at him. he was not weak, he was no longer on his knees, he was not begging for his life. But soon he would prove it, and soon the tables will be turned on the murdering son of a- wait, he would not think of his mother like that. It was only the fact that his brother was the 'evil slithering devil that rode on Sasuke's shoulder' that he was that he had wanted to say that.

A snake slithered in his sleeve, its scales moving brushing against the katana that Sasuke held, as he levelled it up, and moved into a fighting position, Itachi pulling out a kunai to fight with. It seemed ridiculous, the massive, sharp deadly long blade, against the small, but still sharp, pathetic looking kunai. But Itachi was a seasoned fighter, and could fight anything with only a kunai.

Itachi and Sasuke flew at each other.

The 'two last Uchiha's' fighting to the death.

It was what had been foretold, what had been planned, and prepared to happen. One would fall, leaving this earth, to travel onwards, free from what the past had done, and what had happened in the past, while the other would fulfil the plans, and destroying those who had destroyed him.

***

Hmmm… so… who will die… who will live… do you know what is coming to mind…? That whole, 'one can't live, while the other survives…' thing from harry potter… lol love it!!!!


	20. Chapter 20

Anyway... here comes Sakura's entrance!!! and relavations...

***

Sakura felt strange. It was like she was half asleep, yet half awake. She could hear fighting, her well trained ears picking up the sounds of metal clashing, and of grunts and shouts. She could hear the silence, deadly silence, as she felt the dream that she had had replay in her head, over and over again, as she tried to figure out the meaning of it, and what was happening around her.

She was confused.

She tried to open her eyes, only to find that her body was not obeying her. It was not normal, and obviously not a normal sleep, but an induced sleep that she was in. Or more half sleep…

She tried to remember what had happened.

She knew that Itachi was around somewhere, and that he was not completely bad. He had been ordered to kill the clan… but wait…? Why then did she have feelings of anger when she thought of him… betrayal? Sadness. The feelings came, but she did not know why she felt that way. She could not remember…

Something about the sharingan… oh. She remembered. He was going to help her go to sleep, but then he did something… what was happening when he put her to sleep…?

He had looked…

Hardened or… colder, just before he had used his blood limit to put her to sleep. It was then, she figured, that she had felt the feelings of betrayal and helpless foolishness. His eyes had not scared her, although they had unnerved her, the red colour too much like that of a person's life blood to let her not be unnerved by it. It was very pretty though, she had to admit, much like the eyes of the Hyuuga clan.

Then, it hit her.

The memories of her dream, and the unidentified nervous feeling of warmth that she got, when she was around him. She inwardly groaned, feeling annoyed with herself. She always seemed to fall for those ones who were unattainable. The dark, mysterious, tall dark and handsome stereotypes who were completely out of her league, and setting her up for heartbreak. It wasn't just a crush… it didn't feel the same, the feelings were intense, so much more compelling and strong. She could not resist her emotions and heart, her brain screamed at her for it all the while.

She was falling in love with another Uchiha.

Uchiha Itachi.

***

Sasuke stood, feeling satisfied as he watched his brother fall to his knees, panting lightly, as the blood welled over from the deep gash that stretched across his brother's chest. He felt joy and conflict as he went to step forward, ready to finish the deed, as his brother's dark unmoving eyes stared into his.

Itachi was aware of his impending doom. He had planned it, but Sasuke was still not strong enough. It would not be the council who his brother would have to deal with, but a stronger, more experienced fighter, one who had the same advantages of a blood limit that they had, if not even more of one.

But Sasuke was not ready.

He cursed the timing, and was angry. The fool, he had gone to Orochimaru for quick power, instead of building it, strengthening himself slowly, and eliminating weaknesses like he had been taught. He had become reliant on his kekkei genkai, and on the curse mark, instead of on nobody but himself.

His brother truly was a fool.

"Foolish brother… you are not ready…" He managed to keep control over his voice, making it be calm, forcing it not to show his dismay and anger at his brother. His plans had been perfect. He had not counted on the pawn becoming useless, and the one way directness stopping him from being able to complete the task that was going to be set upon him. Sasuke had started as a pawn, but had grown in ranks, before becoming the queen. Then, Orochimaru had entered the equation.

He had never planned for his brother to join the Snake sannin, hell, he had destroyed the training ground at the Akatsuki base when he had heard the news about it. It had not been what Itachi had been angling for, and definitely not what he had expected. He had thought that his brother had been brought up to know better than that, that the Copy Nin would have talked to him, convinced him that the lures of power that Orochimaru held were nothing but empty, brief jutsus, ones that as the longer you held the jutsu, the more it took out of you, until you were nothing.

That's all that Sasuke was becoming. He was back to the pawn, a mere messenger in the post office. A mere stepping stone to the edge of the pound. He had tried, tried with all that he had had, to make Sasuke ready, to mould him to become what he was meant to be. But to no avail.

"I am ready enough to kill you. You killed our clan, our family. Slaughtered them." Sasuke's eyes burned, showing the deep, raging inferno of hidden anger and hurt, that was boiling just below the surface. Then, the volcano erupted, the spitting flames and molten lava pouring out. "WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO IT?!!! Why did you have to kill them!!!" Sasuke's pain and anger poured out, his weakness flowing though. For a moment, the hurt and confusion on his face brought back memories for Itachi.

Of course Sasuke was not ready. He had not matured. He was still the hurt, lost little brother that Itachi had seen in him when he was meant to kill him, the weak, helpless boy, who had looked to him, seeking him for protection and answers, trusting him with everything that he had possessed.

It was this that brought back the feelings that Itachi had had, the ones that had made him spare his little brother, and give up everything for him.

Itachi sighed, a low sound, filled with emotion. It was rare that he let the emotions out, but even the smallest of actions and the most minute of motions showed across so much. The sigh held guilt, longing and worry, filled for his little brother.

"…"

He remained wordless, accepting his fate as tears blurred Sasuke's eyes, and he raised the blade, shouting a war cry, or some sort of let out of excess pent up emotion, the sound scaring whatever heard it.

The blade swung through the air, slicing finely as it passes through the solid mass, and thudded to the ground…

***

And some thoughts on Itachi's view of Sasuke and Itachi's reasoning... i wonder what Itachi was trying to prepare Sasuke to do... will Sakura wake up in time, or will another character appear...

Review and you find out sooner!!!


	21. Chapter 21

Yay! Chapter!

I am soooooooo soooooo sorry for how long it has taken me to get going and write a new chapter… I hit myself on hand for that.

Bad craizypet! 

Well, that wonderful thing called 'life' caught up to me, and in one sudden swoop, everything dropped on me like a load of bricks.

It was like a small hurricane blew in through my door, and I currently destroying anything in sight, including my wonderful reading and writing time, and replacing it with homework, internals, life dramas and family and friend issues.

Evil cyclone. *sits in corner muttering* Thinks it can pull me away from my precious computer for long…

*stands up suddenly in superman pose* NEVER!

Well, extra long, and double chapter is coming, for my absence, and I am terrible sorry for the length of time I was away.

I did, however, get some good constructive crit, so I will be checking over my work more, and going into more depth and feeling with my writing, as I seemed to be hurrying it along for my next Kakasaku story and did short chapters.

Bad craizypet.

And I also changed my reviewing device thingy, so even if you don't have a profile on ff, you can still review!

Sakura heard the cry, recognising it immediately, her inner stirring, breaking whatever jutsu was on them, and taking over for the still dormant in thought Sakura. She felt the rush of anger, and stubborn determination that her Inner held, and the jutsu that had been effecting her snap off.

She would describe it akin to breaking to the surface of water, when swimming. She felt her body finally respond, her eyes opening slowly, and her arms moving at her will, the blood flowing faster and properly, as adrenaline was pumped into her system. She leapt into action, her mind taking in the fast movements that were happening around her, as she saw a bright, shining glint, as light glanced off the blade sweeping towards the ground.

Her chakra was channelled to her arms, and legs, as she moved on instinct, a desperate need for speed as she blurred across the fighting field, and into the way of the blade, dodging it, and grabbing the source of her protective fear. She used a substitution jutsu to get away from the flying blade, and then calculated the situation. He was in a bad state, she saw it immediately, as the medic in her assessed his body, and the injuries that he had. Blood and gaping wounds littered his body, as well as second and third degree burns and other bruises and cuts. Her chakra set to work, knitting his flesh and soothing the pain as she glared at the man causing the disturbance.

"Uchiha Sasuke." She spat out, her eyes narrowing, and taking on a more deadly look, a glint of anger and frustration in them. Sakura was still dormant, lying in wait in the back of her mind, trying to cope with the knowledge that she had been given, and planning the options available. She was connecting the dots, and was in a state of mental thought, meditation as it would seem.

But her Inner had no problems with taking the reins. In fact, she was most happy to and stoked to be given the opportunity to do what Sakura had been too shy or unwilling to do. She flew across the space between her and the dark man, the boy that she once thought that she knew, and punched him in the jaw, his face shocked and disbelieving at the speed that she moved with.

After all, she had been fifteen when they had last fought against each other, and she was now seventeen, two years of intense training later. Kakashi had finally taken the initiative to try and train her, after she went to Lee and Gai for help on her physical skills. She knew that she was amazing at destroying things with her bare hands, as long as she had chakra. She was looking for the skill to do so with even less chakra, and to speed her system up a bit.

She could fight with Kakashi, keeping him on his toes for a few hours, if they were not using chakra or sharingan. That, was something that the pink haired girl was proud of. And Inner Sakura had no problem with showing that off.

"You have a lot of guts you know? And little brain compared to that." Inner mocked, smirking gleefully at the chance that she had to speak her thoughts to the boy that had broken her heart, or well, more Sakura's heart, but still. They were close enough. "Leaving us like you did, and deciding to go off with that snake. You are stupid, for even thinking that you are stronger. Naruto could destroy you in a second."

Red eyes widened in shock as the girl, the one he had known for hating Naruto and loving Sasuke, insulted him, and laughed at him, mocking and looking down on him. The mere fact that she had compared him to the Kyuubi carrier, and had called him stupid was almost completely out of character. Inner saw the dumbstruck loo, and laughed, the chuckle sending a shiver down his spine.

While he did not see Sakura as a threat, there were times when she pulled something out of her sleeve and surprised him. She had a violent streak, that showed through only in certain situations. This seemed to be one of them. Although normally the violent streaks did not last too long, but it did not seem that she would be calming down anytime soon.

"You know what Brat?" Inner grinned, smirking at the still motionless Sasuke. "You have no idea what, or who you are dealing with. You are so naïve." She scorned a sadistic smirk and look adorning her face at the irony that she had seen. She found it very entertaining. At last she will say her part. "Ironic, no? The fact that we were right all along, that you going to Orochimaru was stupid, weak, and a poor decision on your part. What could he offer you that Konoha couldn't?"

"Power." Sasuke spat out, wiping the blood from his mouth and split lip that Sakura's punch had caused. He was not happy at all, to say the least. This Sakura was different, hardened and more outspoken. She was no longer the fan girl that she had been. He wondered, idly, what had happened to change that.

"Oh?" She tapped her chin thoughtfully, green eyes glinting and sparkling with mirth, and pretended to look surprised. "Was the power behind that punch not enough? I could make it so that it sent you all the way back to Konoha, but sadly, the impact of that punch would blow you to pieces so I guess that method of transportation is out…"

Sasuke was sick of it. There she was, the weak member of team seven, bullshitting around with him, even though she knew that he was stronger, too much stronger than her, for her to actually win. He moved, doing a simple, yet powerful move that he thought would work, but when he did try to attack from behind, he paused, standing ready to hit her in the back of the neck, as she spoke.

"Going to hit me in the back of the neck? Pressure point there. Sadly though, you are mistaken if you think that I will allow you to do the same thing twice." Sasuke could not see her expression, but he could tell that she was tense, and ready to move. He did not see her expression harden, the green jade eyes cooling to stony emeralds, and her lips thinning with displeasure and insult.

"Clichés are normally clichés because they work, and this is no clichés move. While this move might have worked when I was twelve, I am different now, so much stronger and able than what I had been. All thanks to you and your departure. So no, thank you."

He moved, hand blurring out to try and hit her neck, but thanks to the training with the Copy Nin, Inner was prepared, and spun, her foot lashing out with chakra and her weight and force behind it, to send him flying into a tree.

"CHA!"

She was there as he hit it, anticipating the crunch sound as he smashed the wood into fragments and splinters, and then she brought her fist down, and another fast hit, hitting three key pressure points, sending a shot of chakra to them, paralysing them, and making him unable to move, as she looked down on him, before she bent down, her smile pure feminine satisfaction and catlike smugness. She extended her hand, watching as the tamoe spun faster as her hand grew closer, before she flicked him in the forehead, a chuckle emitted from her throat. He glared at her, his sharingan spinning with the anger and humiliation that he felt from being taken down just like that. His expression changed to disbelief as she moved to his brother, choosing to ignore the younger brother, and focusing on healing the older.

Itachi was still sitting where he had been placed by the pink haired medic, his eyes open, slitted to thin peaking red and black smears, as he had watched the fight play out between the two old team mates. He was shocked to see how fast the medic had taken care of his brother, and the ruthlessness that she had used. The kicks and punches were not drawn back, and Itachi was sure that he had heard several bones snap with crunching, clicking sounds, and a dislocated shoulder or something as well as the seemingly small, fragile girl-woman had sent the tall, all muscle of a man flying.

Then the small flick at the end… it reminded him of what he had used to do to Sasuke as well. It was the perfect way to show the feelings of satisfaction and to prove who was in control. No doubt Sasuke would remember the times he had tried to get Itachi to train him as well. More than likely remembering with hatred and anger, mixed in with admiration and humiliation.

"What are you thinking?" Inner asked, speaking in a curious and somewhat smouldering undertone. There was intensity and depth to it, not at all shy and drawn back, like what her other questions had been before. No, there was something else there, Itachi could hear it, some sort of hidden unlacing message that she was trying to get through to him. His brain whirred, the clogs in it ticking as he tried to figure what was different with her. The look in her eyes, the way that she stood, and acted.

She was all woman.

No longer the innocent childlike curiosity, but a deeper, darker thirst for knowledge… and other things… he could see it in the darkening of her eyes, as she lay her hand on his chest, the warm, soothing feeling of her chakra burning its way through his blood, boiling his blood and at the same time managing to give him chills.

"Now? Or before?" His eyes flicker to her face, taking her hungry expression in, and then glancing at Sasuke, who was still looking incredulously at the two of them, and then at Sakura's glowing green hands.

Sasuke did not understand. Why was Sakura healing him? He was a murderer, and a known enemy of the village! She was meant to be fighting him… unless Itachi had used a genjutsu on her… there were justu's that could be brain washing and somewhat compulsive to those under it's spell… then it would explain her strange behaviour…

Then there was the look on their faces…

Itachi inspected the verdant coloured eyes and rose hued locks framing the slight and somewhat stunningly delicate face of the woman. He would no longer call her a child-woman or woman-child, or whatever he had used to refer to her as. She was new, a stranger. He was once again, pulled into the mystery and intrigue of the woman in front of him. She was always interesting, to say the least.

She grinned, impishly, and then blinked her eyes at him, her long lashes suddenly noticed by his sharp eyes, and the different shades of green in her eyes. Her pupil had a ring of light, bright apple and lime green framing the dark hole, and then steadily growing darker, till it was a deep, undefined forest and ocean bottle green colour, like that of green glass of a wine bottle. Flecks of various leaf greens and waves of foamy aqua shades littered the area in between her pupil and the outline of her iris. He was captivated.

"I had been referring to before, but now that you seem so intent on studying me, now is good."

Displeased and disgruntled to be caught staring, he tore his gaze away from her, and then answered her question with another question. He kept his voice calm and uncaring as he hardened his gaze and stared her down.

"Who are you?"

Inner fell into hysterics at the look on his face when she pointed out how fascinated he seemed to be with her, before chuckling into a small sigh. She looked at Sasuke briefly and then back at the good looking and dashingly deadly man that she just wanted to ravish. If she hadn't known that Sakura would banish her to the back of her mind if Inner jumped Itachi; she would have dared to jump him, and try to ravish him… Where Sasuke had been cute, Itachi was all man, and all too much for many to handle… He was too hot for his own good…

"You are fast… Didn't take you long to figure out that I'm not Sakura…" Inner mused, almost wistfully. "Oh well… I will still be able to see what is going on later, and tell her what to do…"

"…" Itachi looked at the pink haired woman, and the pose that she was in, looking thoughtful, the look on her face sad and joyful at the same time. It reminded him of someone who had lost something, but to the price of getting something almost just as good in return. He waited patiently, looking impassive as the woman disappeared into a whole other world.

"Hm…" she sighed again. "I am Sakura's Inner. Currently Sakura is busy mediating at the moment, so leave a message and I will get back to her shortly!" Inner laughed at her own little joke, as Itachi looked at her blankly, trying not to let the muscle in his eyebrow twitch. He thought about what she had said, his mind dissecting her words, until he thought that he had an answer.

"You are her split personality." He stated, rather than asking, his tone still waiting for further correction of his assumption. Inner only nodded, narrowing her eyes at him.

"You are too fast. Good thing I am not one of those girls who thinks that smart guys are stupid." Inner smiled coyly at him, resisting the urge to throw herself at him. She decided to condemn herself to pick up lines and flirtation instead.

"… Smart guys are stupid…" Itachi looked at her, a faint glimmer of amusement in his eye as he groaned softly as her hands caressed his chest, running over the hard, chiselled planes of his pectorals, then travelled down to his abs, slowly making their way across them, tracing spirals and lines and leaving behind the urge for Itachi to shiver and his skin raising into goosebumps. No woman had affected him like that before.

"Hmm…" she looked up, her eyes dark with desire as she pushed him back against the tree firmly, and healed the deep ragged wound there. Her chakra made him feel energized with burning need and a static electricity. She eventually, after what seemed like an hour, yet at the same time less than a second, but was really only about the space of three minutes of healing, moved her hands away from his chest, and then soothed over the burnt spaces of his clothing, pulling out a kunai and holding it steadily in her hands as she reached towards him…

He moved quickly, flipping her over so that she was the one sitting against the tree, and he was the ones pressing her back into it. Her eyes flashed with anger at the degrading position, as much as she liked it, and felt a heat burn in the lower part of her stomach at it; it was against her wishes to have so little power in contact with the man.

"What the hell!" she hissed, her voice full of venom and anger, "what do you think you are doing, I was trying to heal you!"

"With a kunai." Tone cold, and touched with sarcasm, he turned his red eyes to her, the full force of his gaze alone making her flinch, before she glared at him, her attempt to come over as strong and unafraid back. She sighed, rolling her eyes, and trying to move and push him off of her, squirming around under him.

"No, if you didn't notice, you are burnt." She poked the burn, causing him to growl lightly under his breath, and his hands to tighten where they were at her wrists. He was sure that that was going to leave bruises, but she did just poke his tender flesh, so she only got a taste of her own medicine.

"Really now. I didn't notice."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit Itachi." He felt a thrill at the sound of his name on her tongue, and then tried to contain his excitement as she moved around further, before he reluctantly, and with some relief, moved off her, allowing her to stand up and step away from him.

"Explains why you use it so much." He commented, sitting back as she gave him a dagger eyed look, and then cut the cloth from his skin, pulling it away gently, Itachi staying silent and unflinching through the whole process.

"So kind to the kunoichi who is healing you." She retorted, pouting at him, and then giving him a light nudge. "All I was going to do was cut the cloth off and away from your burns, unless you want me to rip it off." He blinked, his sharingan fading back to his dark, shadowy eyes, taking his cue to say what was on his mind. And apparently Sasuke's as well, as the dark haired young man sat not moving, against the tree where he had been left, half fainted from a mixture of chakra exhaustion, pain, blood loss and confusion.

"Why are you healing me then?"

She looked at him, raising her brows in surprise at the question. "I thought it was obvious."

"Well, if I'm asking, it's obviously not." Itachi replied lightly. Normally, he wouldn't reply, but there was something about verbally sparring with the kunoichi that he found entertaining. She seemed to be taking up most of his thoughts now, which was simply not acceptable. He could not be thinking about how interesting she was while he was trying to fight.

It was official.

She had gotten to him.

Ha ha, Itachi is DOOOMED! He he… I decided that from the beginning though! ;P

Alright, here comes the next chapter too!


	22. Chapter 22

Sasuke watched as Sakura and Itachi talked, her hands caressing his chest, healing his wounds tenderly, as their gazes were locked, captivated on each other, and talked. Then suddenly, Sakura had said something, and she was on the ground, as Itachi hovered above her, not quite touching her, as if he was scared to touch her. He hissed at her, saying something low and dangerous under his breath, before she snorted back an angry reply. He paused, and then moved off her, murmuring something under his breath, his eyes glittering.

Sasuke had never seen Itachi like this. Not even before the massacre. He had always been the more stoic one, the sombre one, the one who held the weight of the clan's pressures upon his shoulders, and took all his responsibilities seriously. That is, until just before the clan was killed, and Itachi began showing his displeasure towards them.

He watched, as they glanced towards him, their tones lower and more hushed than before. Sasuke acted like he was almost unconscious, and activated the sharingan, narrowing his eyes so that they would not notice. Itachi did not have his sharingan activated, as he had deactivated when he had let Sakura get up off the ground, and had looked at him.

"Why are you healing me then?" Sasuke read his older brother's lips, seeing that the Uchiha genius was just as confused as what his younger brother was.

"I thought it was obvious."

"Well, if I'm asking, it's obviously not."

Sakura gave a short, bark of laughter, and looked at him, her eyes softening for the first real time, in a twisted mixture of pity, surprise and genuine affection. "Well, you did not expect Sakura to sit around while you got yourself killed now, did you?"

"What does it matter to her, or you, for any matter, what happens to me." Itachi was cold, yet managing to convey some unsatisfied curiosity, and another emotion that Sasuke could not recognise.

"You did not expect us to let you die, not after what you told us." Sakura flicked her hair out of her eyes, and looked unblinkingly down at Itachi, as Sasuke noticed the slight hardening around Itachi's eyes, as they cooled over, any emotion in them gone, his mouth tightening into a straight line.

Sasuke had no time to wonder what Sakura was going on about when she said 'we' and 'us' nor what she had said before, speaking from the point of view of the third person. Itachi had already begun speaking.

"Yes. That is what any capable shinobi would do."

Sakura's face darkened at the mention of her not being a capable shinobi. She stood up quietly, and moved away from Itachi, her hands fading from the light greenish glow to the normal pale colour. She walked towards him, and before he knew it, she was bending down in front of him, her hands on his wounds, healing them.

Sasuke noticed that the angry look that Sakura had had on her face had gone, replaced by a blank stare, her emerald eyes suddenly ceasing their burning rage, and changing to a flickering dream state like look and then by a considering gaze, as the pink haired woman seemed to think about something, before she spoke up.

"I know that you are awake, Sasuke. And I think that you and your brother need to talk about what happened that night, when the Uchiha clan was killed." She spoke loudly, so that Itachi could hear her as well. Sasuke started in shock at what she said. She had said it… like… like there was something about the deaths of his entire clan that he did not know, like he was missing something, something that Itachi had told her, but not him.

He hated it when he was out of the loop.

Itachi levelled his gaze onto the rosette, looking at her, his glace dangerous. He could not believe, that after what he had told her, she would go and say something like that! He had not told Sasuke for a reason… God damn it, she was a foolish, intelligent, annoying, beautiful… … pause… …

Sakura grinned impishly at the glare that Itachi was giving her. She was stubborn, and it had taken her a while to see it, but if she could get Sasuke to stop his foolish revenge quest, and instead get him and Itachi to talk, and open up about the massacre, then maybe, they would stop fighting, and they could kill the elders for what they did, and Sasuke could come back.

It was fool proof!

Unfortunately… Itachi did not see that.

He grabbed her arm, ignoring Sasuke's angered and confused look, and pulled the girl away from the burnt out area of trees, and into the lurking darkness and privacy of the endless canopy. He dragged her, ignoring the growling noise she was making at the indignity of her situation, and leapt into the trees, jerking her arm almost out of its socket as he landed with catlike grace on a branch.

Sakura, on the other hand, did not land as gracefully, and tripped, her weight and body out of balance as Itachi jerked her off her feet and into the trees. She hit the tree, one knees bent and taking all the pressure, while the other dangled off the branch. She failed for a slipt second, before she felt an arm catch her around the shoulder and push her into the trunk.

"What are you doing?" Itachi asked calmly, as if his large, agile hands and fingers were not digging into her shoulder, and the other was not current resting delicately at her neck, his index finger at her pulse, feeling the racing heart rate accelerate even further at the position. He could kill her at any moment, hitting one of her pressure points, snapping her graceful neck in a second, or strangle her slowly, watching as the life drained from her eyes.

Which ever suited, if need maybe.

"Currently, wondering if what I did was a good idea… and wishing that I wasn't such a fool." Sakura resorted to her normal nervous honest answer… her voice trembling ever so slightly, as she tried to calm her racing pulse. She knew he could feel it, as he leant forward, his mouth brushing her neck, as his voice spoke coolly in her ear, his breath fanning across the sensitive area. Her spine gave a shiver, but not of fear…

"Yes… that's what I am thinking too… so why did you even say anything, you stupid, naïve kunoichi." As smooth as velvet as his voice was, she could hear the anger and rage boiling below it.

She took a shuddering breath, and then spoke, her voice marginally more in control than before. "Did you not say that Sasuke was not strong enough? I am presuming that Sasuke would kill you, and then as you die, you were planning to tell him the truth… so why not tell him now? I personally think that the elders need to pay for what they did, and I know that Sasuke would want them dead. Heck…" Sakura's voice dropped, as she added on, "I would think that even you would want them gone. After all, they destroyed your life…"

Itachi's eyes grew darker, the knowledge and understanding of what the kunoichi was thinking finally setting in. Comprehension dawned as he realised something else.

"And Sasuke would come back to you."

Sakura gave a short nod, not being able to deny it. "It would be great to have the last member of Team Kakashi back, and for Naruto to get back his best friend."

Itachi remained unreadable, although he could feel his heart harden at the direction of his thoughts, for some strange reason that made no sense to him. He did not understand why he was so interested. She had stated the main reasons, and it was not a bad plan, rather tempting as well…

"And for you…?" He asked, wondering what Sasuke was to her…

"It would be good to gain back my comrade, my team mate." She spoke without hesitation. One Uchiha brother had replaced the other. She inwardly sighed in exasperation at herself, she truly was a stupid girl.

Itachi became happier at the answer. Although happy was not quite the right word… Uchiha Itachi was never happy… merely… content. Or maybe satisfied. He had no idea why, but the black mood had disappeared, and the hopeful looking in her eyes warmed something in him.

His cold heart was melting for this girl.

And he had finally admitted it. She had somehow, managed to slip under his guard and into the blackened, slowly dying shell that was his heart. She had warmed it, coxing it back to life, and had then linked it to her, so that he could not ignore her, or put his interest in her down to pure curiosity and amusement.

It had become so much more than that, and Itachi found it ironic how he had just been lecturing his brother about bonds with the pink haired girl, when he, himself, had been tangled in ties and knots with her as well. He let out a chuckle at the thought.

Funny how things turn out…

Sakura watched as the Uchiha took deep, even breaths, and his mind obviously ticking over, until he let out a small amused and somewhat perplexed chuckle. She wondered what he was laughing at, as his head fall forwards lightly onto her shoulder.

Sakura felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen.

He was relaxed.

He had just dropped his guard, and was leaning like he was perfectly comfortable with her, on her.

… Huh…

… Wtf?...

"Um…" a light blush moved across her face as Sakura looked down, stunned, at the S-class criminal. Last time she checked it was not normal for him to let his guard down at all… let alone around her, when he had been on the verge of strangling her. "Why… What…?" She had no idea how to phrase it, and instead tried to take it easy on her poor, frazzled and confused brain.

Her inner chuckled. 'Told you he was hot, and that you liked him…'

'I don't like him.'

'Do.'

'Don't.'

'Do… oh… right. Don't.'

'huh?'

'You don't like him… you lurvvve him…!'

Sakura decided not to respond to it. Only because it was true of course… but still. She had some pride to uphold there.

Shaking her head slightly, both at her inner, and to try and clear it, she spoke slowly, stumbling over her question faintly. "W-what did you laugh about?"

"Irony."

"Oh."

Itachi watched as the pink haired girl tried unsuccessfully not to blush even redder. She was trying to understand it, but was failing miserably as she was distracted by the prickling feeling of intense dark eyes on her. Her inner was crowing with victory.

"It seems that I need to be less of a hypocrite."

"H-how so…?" Sakura blinked with some surprise at the man. He was not one to pitch into a conversation, at least not without some prompting. The only other times he had added his two pence's worth in was… it took too much brain cells time to remember, and she needed all the brain cells that she could use to even barely concentrate on the conversation. Even so, she thought she had misheard when she heard his reply.

"You."

"W-what…?"

There we are…

I must say, I do not think that the Itachi who had been through what he has been through (aka. Non- non-massacre AU Itachi) would act like what I am making him do, but as 'he' 'said' earlier in the story, Sakura makes him wonder what it would have been like if he was normal, and makes him feel normal-er…

Btw, when Sakura went all –blank look- as she turned to Sasuke that was because she was coming out from her trance and she was saying 'bye bye' to inner's control… just thought I would clear that up!

He he, Itachi was getting slight twinges of that wonderful green feeling… jealously! Or envy… whichever suits!


	23. Chapter 23

Hm… here's the next chappie! If you're good I might put another one up!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you were the ones who spurred me to get a move on on my writing! So cookies for you! Actually, I like chocolate better, and the giving of chocolate from me is a big deal…

So chocolate for you!

SSS

Sakura started, looking at Itachi like he had lost his wits. She blinked, wondering if her hearing was messed up or something, and then repeated her half shocked, quarter horrified, and a quarter hopeful-yet-waiting-for-disappointment question.

"What? I-I think I misheard you… can you repeat that…?" She looked at him, too shocked to stumble on her words. Her brain had frozen, had a minor… Oh, who was she kidding, had a major melt down. She could not believe it when he explained his words clearer than before.

"I said that I had laughed at the irony that I had just scolded my brother for his softness in areas concerning you, yet at the same time, I am doing the exact same thing. Letting you build the same type of bond that held him to you and Konoha."

Itachi observed as the pink haired woman went pale, all of the blood draining from her face, the pretty blush that she had had gone, fading with any of her ability to speak. Or to at least speak so he could understand.

"Y-you… but… I- I don't understa-"

He cut her off, sending her an amused look. "Do I have to spell it out for Kunoichi?"

She looked at him, her wide doe like green eyes blinking rapidly. Her inner was gleefully chuckling and dancing and shouting in her head in a strange type of victory war dance. Her inner was also radiating feelings of smug happiness and no hesitation to think over what it really meant. For Sakura and for Itachi; He was 'the enemy'. Sadly, Sakura was thinking about these things and did still not understand what Itachi was trying to tell her.

She did not hesitate to answer.

"Yes."

SSS

Sasuke waited. He waited very patiently. Or at least for him he did, but if it was anyone else, they would have been called impatient, impulsive and intolerant. Good thing that Sasuke was Sasuke, and not Naruto, then.

He waited for another couple of minutes, wanting so much to get up and follow them… unfortunately, Sakura had not healed his paralysis. So, all he could do was stay where he was, waiting unhappily, and still sulking for being out of the loop. He hated it with a loathing.

It did give him time though to think over what Sakura had said and to try and make sense of the whole situation. Sakura obviously knew more about the clan murder and about his brother's actions than what he did, and more so than what he would have ever thought that she would know… but how did she find out?

Did the village know more about it? Had the contacts that the shinobi and the Hokage have finally find something worth Sasuke's while to look up on? Or was it another guess work frame that had Itachi worried? No. Itachi would not be worried over nothing. There must be something more to the massacre than what Sasuke had ever thought there was to it.

But as much as he tried to guess what it could be, all he came up with were blanks. He wondered if Itachi found out some types of scandal, or if the first murder that he had done, the murder of his best friend, Shuishi, had anything to do with it. Maybe his best friend had somehow betrayed him… nah…

All of the thoughts that were running through Sasuke's mind were useless, and he knew it. It was only then that another possibility actually came to him, as he thought back on the strange way that Itachi acted around Sakura… like she was harmless to him, like they got along perfectly fine… and were comfortable and friendly around each other… or were, at least, until she had pronounced the 'treaty talks' that were meant to happen between the brothers…

How would she have known…

Itachi would not possibly...? No, he was insane, but not stupid… he wouldn't have…? Would he?

No. what would Itachi have had to gain from telling Sakura, a Leaf Kunoichi, anything. Itachi only did things for himself, never for anyone else. He would have nothing to gain from telling Sakura anything about the massacre. But it made no sense… how did Sakura find out about the massacre, if Itachi had not been the one to tell her anything about it…

And there was also the absolute look of murder on Itachi's face when she came out all of a sudden and told them that the two brothers had to talk. Sasuke never thought that Itachi was even able to express emotions, let alone some random phrase such as, I-am-going-to-kill-you-as-soon-as-I-find-out-what-is-going-through-your-fricken'-mind… all in one single look.

It really was a day full of shocks for Uchiha Sasuke.

And unfortunately, it was not even close to finishing.

SSS

Itachi smirked at her answer. He should have expected it. She had always been brutally honest with him before, when she thought that she was going to die, and obviously, the fact that he had just told her that he felt something, or had some type of connection with her had not changed that, or affected it in the slightest at all.

His amusement became more pronounced as she looked as she looked shocked and uncomfortable with the wicked glint in his eyes, and as he moved closer, deciding that actions spoke louder than words. His body trapped her against the tree truck, as her back rubbed roughly on the scaping bark and hard surface. She was literally trapped between a rock and a hard place, and the feeling of out of the pot and into the fire had never been so well used by her in her life. She gulped as he leant forward, his breath on her ear, and brushing along her jaw as he move his head beside hers, much like he had done when he was threatening her.

Only this time, it was a completely different threat that he was using.

He felt her breath hitch, as he stayed in his position, unmoving as she shifted uncomfortably. Her blush returned, with a vengeance, as she squirmed and fidgeted under him and his gaze. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her, inspecting her. He seemed to be stripping her down, until she was naked, with all of her secrets exposed, including the attraction that she felt for him.

'Finally!' her inner crowed, 'You admit! Took you long enough!'

'Shut it up, not a god time now…' Sakura snapped at her inner, losing all focus as she frowned, moving a fraction in annoyance to her other self's words.

Itachi found himself pulled to her more, as she frowned, obviously in some inner conflict. After her display before, he guessed that she really was in the middle of an argument with herself, her 'inner' as she had called herself, probably trying to coax Sakura into giving in, her inner had been rather unambiguous on her 'intentions'.

He was intrigued with the woman. She was so… so… interesting, so much more different than anyone he had met before. That was probably the only reason her had let her some so close to him. as he had stated, she made him feel normal, and saw him as himself, not as some crazy genius murderer, not as a fellow psychotic killer, but as a complicated man, who was inclined for a simple life, that is, until he was born into an ambitious genius shinobi clan.

That… was a slight glitch in his personality and future plans.

Other than that he had no idea why he was drawn to the pink haired woman. It could be her vibrant colouring, or her bubbly personality. It could be because she was like a breath of fresh, pure, natural air in the stained and tainted air that he had been in for so long. It could be because he saw a strength and compassion in her, that he had not seen for so long, and that she reminded him of a very wonderful woman that he had known when he was younger; his mother.

Or, all of these could add up to the reason for his attraction to her.

He waited for her to say something, but she only looked at him, her jade eyes wide and confused, and touched with suspicion. She shrugged submissively, and then took to the trees, darting around him before his mind could comprehend that she was going to run. He had not expected.

At all.

He followed her, his gait relaxed, as she led them back to the area where Sasuke was waiting. She paused, waiting just on the edge of the looming trees, and waved a hand for him to go ahead. He, too, paused, lingering hesitantly near her. He was not completely sure how to go about his… new situation.

His dark, intense eyes met hers, and she felt a shiver travel down her spine, and a pool of warmth gather in her lower stomach. She fought the urge to blush, failing miserably, as he leant forward, his eyes still on hers, as he spoke lowly.

"I am sorry." Was all he said, as he nodded to her, and then moved into the clearing, where a perplexed and agitated younger brother waited for him.

Sakura stayed where she was, watching as the tall, muscular back leapt away from her, and she felt a slight twinge in her chest as she did so.

She really had no idea what was going through that man's mind.

She had no idea what was going through her own mind before as well. She had been sorely tempted to do something, anything, to make him stay, and explain himself, as he uttered that small short sentence, that painful, longingly wonderful, yet out of reach phrase.

It was like fate was trying to set her up, to see what she would do, if one brother came close to her, and then the other, both looking the same, tall, dark and handsome, yet, so unattainable and out of reach, both uttering the same phrase as they walked away.

Okay, maybe Itachi wasn't leaving her behind and becoming a traitor to his village.

He had already done that.

'Been there, done that…' her inner spoke up in a posh voice, waving her hand dismissingly. Her inner was too excited to worry about the unimportant facts, such as the fact that Itachi's headband had a scratch through the Hidden Leaf insignia, while Sakura's was clean and shinny, untouched, unscratched… or at least directly through the insignia in the way of a missing nin. Her inner had no interest in that. It was 'unimportant'. The important thing was that Itachi had told her, more or less, that he felt something for her, and wanted her.

Sakura ignored her inner and focused on the main point of her thoughts.

Itachi was a traitor to the village. He was a missing nin, and it would be treason to try anything with him. He was still, a dangerous, deadly, and frighting murderer, and a S class criminal. Nothing could change that. And yet, he had just told her…

It was almost too unbelievable to be true. Like a dream.

Or a nightmare.

Sakura groaned, thinking discouragingly, 'Why can't I just find a nice, non-traitor or mass physio murderer that likes me, and I like him back…?'

SSS

Sasuke waited, listening carefully as he heard soft, whispering sounds of footfalls on the branches near by. He turned his head, as far as he could make it move, which, was not far, and tried to pay attention more.

He heard the movements stop, and a silence.

He felt his heart beat unintentionally pick up, as he wondered what was happening. Had Itachi killed Sakura, and was coming back for him? Sakura had left him defenceless, paralysed and vulnerable on the ground. He hated her for that, and began planning ways he could get out of this situation, gathering his chakra and trying to force himself to move.

He froze, as he heard a softly uttered murmur from the trees, their branches still and silent in the darkness. It was still early in the morning, the sun only just beginning to peak up over the horizon, the grey, moody clouds moving slowly into the distance, turning to pink and orange gold colours as rays of light hit them and brightened them.

"I am sorry."

It was his brother… apologising? To whom? What for? The questions sat in Sasuke's mind, like many of the other ones that had been there since he had seen Sakura with Itachi. He only hoped he would get told the answer to them. Otherwise he would drive himself crazy. The trees moved inaudibly, rustling in the short-lived breeze as Itachi stalked out of the trees, his mask of impassive and distance back on, his eyes the only thing showing any brief, flickers of emotion as he looked down at his younger brother.

They looked at each other, each waiting for the other to give in and break the silence, Sasuke determine to out last his brother, and to prove him wrong, that he was not weak, not inadequate, but a strong, determined and powerful shinobi. it was kind was hard to do so when sitting like a puppet against a tree, limp and frozen.

Finally, he felt his barriers crumble, and as he stared into his older brother's dark, midnight eyes, the sharingan inactivated, he felt like he was being examined even more intensely than what he had felt with the blood line trait.

He caved, managing to voice the one word that asked it all, the one word that Itachi had heard so many times.

"Why…?"

SSS

Sasuke has some answers to get, and Itachi has some explaining to do…

Hmm… does Sakura actually like Itachi… you never know…

I am keeping my options open.

I am sorry, I really dislike this chapter, and the characters feel so… OCC… 'specially 'Tachi, but I can't write it any other way…

Annoying… it's like when you get an idea in your mind, and it just wont get out of your head… or a song!

Yes! Like an annoying, stupid, catchy song that sticks in your head like peanut butter to jam…

Cough cough… grrrrrrrr! trying to put chapter up now! but the stupid thing wont let me use stars to put breaks in! or the funny curly lines either!

he he... capital s worked!

Review! Cause I have a really good idea for the next massive peak in the story! And you don't want me to keep you waiting!


	24. Chapter 24

Here is the next chapter! I was in an inspired mood tonight!

SSS

Itachi heard his younger brother's voice crack, and felt the long awaited feeling of guilt return.

"Why!" his brother shouted, screaming at him, his eyes burning with rage and pain, and confusion. Sasuke had always looked up to his brother, and loved him, adored him, until that night when he had gotten home to find the compound empty… of life. To see his dead relatives lying outside on the ground, their blood staining the dirt, and seeing others twisted and broken in their own homes, the young, the old, and all those in between.

"Why?" he shouted again. "Why did you do it Itachi? You told me lies, all sorts of things, that they were holding you back, that they were trying to control you, that you wanted to test your power! But all of the stories, the reasons and lies have twisted, and even with my eyes I can not see clearly…" Sasuke held back the tears threatening to fall, and gritted his teeth against the anger and pain.

"Why…" he groaned again, wondering what reason Itachi had, to be there, standing in front of him, alive, healed and passive, why Itachi was alive, while the rest of the clan was dead, why he had left Sasuke alive, what reason drove Itachi to kill the clan.

"Because…" Itachi sighed, slightly surprised how hard it was, after all these years to tell him the truth. He had kept it hidden so long, and had only told it once, to one person, who had urged him to tell his brother. He still could not believe what he was doing as he ignored his brother's angry glare, and turned his eyes off into the trees, activating his sharingan to try, unsuccessfully to find Sakura.

There was no sign of pink hair, as he had expected.

He was not surprised and had been expecting something of the sort as soon as he had walked into the clearing. She had left them alone, not wanting to intrude or interrupt them. He was unhappy, and would have found it easier if she had been there, her comforting presence soothing him and letting him know that he had done the right thing.

"Why!" Sasuke growled out, his patience worn down for the day.

"Because… I was ordered to." Itachi watched as his younger brother's eyes widened, just as Sakura's had, filled with disbelief and shock.

"What…?" Sasuke managed to choke out. After all these years of blaming his brother, and to find out that he had been ordered to… to- to kill his entire clan, his family, his supporting cast…

"They were plotting a coup." Itachi explained simply, watching as Sasuke looked even more shocked, and repeated himself again.

"What… but… how…?"

Itachi moved, padding silently over to his younger brother, and judging it safe, released Sasuke from his paralyse, and sat down on the ground next to his brother, hunching dejectedly, for the first time in his life. Sasuke moved over, to some extent, further away from his sibling, unsure of his intentions.

"They were planning to overthrow the Third Hokage and take over the village. The Hokage had been suspicious of the activity and the Uchiha clan's actions over the time before the massacre, and I, being an ANBU captain, was ordered to watch them, and report back to him and the council on the actions and planning of the Uchiha clan. There had been much unrest in the clan, the clan meetings about the coup, and how to stage it, some less ambitious members arguing that it was a too higher a goal, and that they were content with their lot in life. Others, the more ambitious ones, wanted more, and had been outraged when the Hokage had cut down their power in the village, limiting their resources and connections to try and avoid the situation that was occurring. You were too young to know about the plans."

Sasuke blinked, staring ahead, as he had given up trying to watch his brother, the sight of his brother, so strong, looking so pained and defeated… it did not sit well with him. He gave a small twitch, as he tried to take in what the elder Uchiha had been saying.

"They planned a coup."

"Yes." Itachi spoke simply, his voice calm.

"And you were ordered to watch them, to spy on your own family, to betray your clan." Disgust and bitter betrayal entered Sasuke's voice as he stood, spinning to snarl at his brother. "You-"

"If I had not done what I had did," Itachi interrupted, his voice calm and stern, "There would have been a civil war in our village and land, and many innocent lives would have been lost. The way of life as we had known it would have been destroyed, and we would have had to wage war against our comrades, our team mates in the village who were still loyal to the Hokage. There would have been countless deaths, and all for a foolish desire for power." His eyes were unwavering as he stared into his younger brother's hurt eyes. Itachi knew that he had done something for the good of the village, and the civilians and shinobi alike in it that would have been thrown into the war. He did not back down and defended his actions.

"…" Sasuke looked down, sitting back on the ground, the aching feeling returning to his chest as he tried to envision what Konoha would have been like in the war. "So you killed them. You were ordered to only watch them, and then you ended up killing them all."

"No." Itachi gave a heavy sigh, and leant back against the bark of the tree, looking up at the gently rustling leaves above him, and at the patches of light blue and gold streaked sky peeking out from behind the green foliage.

"I told the Hokage the plans, and kept him updated, but by then the clan had become suspicious of me, and the power behind the unrest sent one of our own to interrogate me, and challenge me."

Sasuke's hands clenched as he understood the events that had happened before the clan's deaths. "Shishui." He stated, the name coming out in a harsh breath of comprehension.

"Yes." Itachi nodded his head, and then continued looking up at the area above him, trying not to lose himself in his memories. He barely succeeded. "Shishui approached me near the Uchiha grounds, and followed me, even though I knew he was there. I did not expect him to try and attack me, so when I called him out from the trees, and asked him what he was doing, his accusation and challenge shocked me. He knew everything about me, about the fact that I was letting the Hokage know about the clan's movements, and that I had been slowly distancing myself from them. I never let it show though, and acted in like. We fought, and he lost."

"And the Mangekyo…" Sasuke whispered hoarsely, his imagination supplying him with the mental images that Itachi fought back.

"I gained it that day. I threw his body in the river, and wrote a suicide note with the sharingan eyes, and then left it." Itachi stopped himself from saying Shishui's name. He could only refer to him as 'he' or 'him'. "I carried on with my mission, and told the Hokage and the council everything. I had always believed that there was someone else behind it though, even though I had no evidence of it. The information that Shishui knew was not something he would be able to find out on his own, and none of the rest of the clan knew with such acuteness what I had been doing; they only suspected me because of my distance and actions to do with the clan meetings, and because of Shishui's death."

"Then what." Sasuke stated, rather than asking, his eyes hardening as he heard what had been happening in the clan, and the threat of another enemy.

"I got the order. It was too risky." Itachi blinked, and then stood up, feeling another chakra enter the area. It was one that he was familiar with… unfortunately. He was on his feet in a split second, and watching the trees, sharingan activated and ready. They had been too busy talking, that time had sped away from them, as they had been dredged into old memories, and an enemy had come to them.

"We have a visitor." He commented lightly, and Sasuke to was on his feet, standing next to Itachi, face hard and dangerous as he looked in the same direction Itachi was looking, his eyes red as well. They waited…

SSS

Sakura had stood around for a couple of minutes, before she heard Sasuke yell something. She took the noise as a signal, and then moved away, darting amongst the trees, dodging the vicious branches with ease. She paused, taking a moment to gain her surroundings and make her way back to an area where she knew the Leaf shinobi would be waiting.

She was a couple of days over her given time for the mission, and knowing Naruto and Kakashi, they would be anxious to find out what had happened to her. Shinobi were allowed some way time for their missions, as not always everything went right, but for such a simple mission…

They would know that something was up. She was not the weak kunoichi that she had been, and was more than competent to finish a simple delivery mission in the set amount of time. And they knew that, and Tsunade knew that too.

She could only hope that what she had done for the brothers was good enough for them to 'make up' and to stop Sasuke from trying to kill Itachi and to convince him to leave Orochimaru. All the rest was up to Itachi and later on, Naruto.

It was not that she was wanting to leave the Uchiha brothers behind…

Or maybe it was. It was not any of her business to get involved with them, and to become a traitor to the village in doing so. She was smart enough to know, that if she stayed, all that would happen would be that she would get dragged into trouble, and pull them down as well.

She could not have the feeling of rejection and pain that she had had before from Sasuke as well. It was better for her to just avoid the situation completely instead. To use her brain and plan the consequences for once in a situation instead of just blindly following her heart. She had other duties, to talk to Tsunade, and go home to Naruto. She had friends there, and was not willing to give it all up for the Uchiha. she might have been at one time, but it was long ago, when she had been younger, and full of naïve and innocent ideas and plans.

She shook her head at herself, and feeling a twinge of regret, continued on. Her heart wanted her to go back to them, and to make sure that everything was okay, but it was also torn towards Naruto. He could not stand losing another friend, not now, and not ever, if he had anything to say about it. And Naruto had a lot of say in her life.

She made it to the place where she knew that the Leaf shinobi would be, and was shocked to see a blond haired man and his partner in matching red and black cloaks. Her chakra signal had already set them off, and they were waiting.

With a growl at herself for not thinking that not only the Leaf shinobi would use the place as a tracking start, she stepped forward, pulling on her gloves tighter, and reaching for a kunai…

Only to find that she had none.

"Damn…" she murmured quietly, not loud enough for the other two enemy shinobi to hear, and tried to remember where it was. A flashback of having when she cut off Itachi's burnt shirt entered her mind, and then she remembered where it was. Bending slowly, as if to crouch down in a fighting position, she reached into her boot her hand closing around…

Cold, hard metal, to her relief. She pulled it out, and then straightened up, remembering the senbon hidden in her breast bindings. She would pull them out… but decided to save them for an emergency. Half of them had a poison on the tips of them, and she did not want to waste it, at least not before she had a good idea of what the other Akatsuki members could do.

"Well, well, well. It seems we have a lost Leaf kunoichi here. And the pink haired one too, hm…" the blond grinned. "It's been a while dollface. Remember me?"

Sakura snarled, drawing her chakra to her limbs and ready to attack or defend. She did remember him, thank Kami, as he was the one with the clay bombs and jutsu. She had studied jutsu like his, and was sure that she knew a weakness in it… it would be a great advantage for her if the tactic worked.

She had no idea about the other one though… He had a strange orange mask on…

"Tobi is a good boy!"

SSS

"Madara."

SSS

Sakura crouched, waiting for the Akatsuki to attack. It did not take long, as it seemed that the blond haired man was impatient, and, despite the urging of his child like partner, pulled out his clan and began moulding something.

"But Deidara-senpai-" the orange masked man whined, his voice childlike and higher pitched.

"Shut up brat, yeah." The blond, Deidara, grinned, as the small clay bird he was moulding suddenly expanded as the blond threw it in the air, his hands flashing with the movement. The bird seemed to explode, the massive wingspan bursting out into the air, and the blond leapt on, not taking his eyes off the pink haired woman across the small track.

"Tobi does not think that thi-" the orange masked man, Sakura was guessing his name was Tobi, was cut off as the blond pulled him onto the bird behind him. The bird swept its wings up and down, and made its ascent into the air, great gusts of wind blowing as the wings pumped.

Sakura gave a small smile, already knowing that the blond would do that. Knowledge on the Akatsuki had become a high priority to the village after the attempts by Uchiha Itachi and his partner to capture Naruto. And especially after Gaara's kidnapping.

She waited patiently as the first of the exploding spider bombs dropped, and she dodged, moving fast across the clearing, and channelling chakra to her feet, she raced up the highest tree she could find and pushed off, kicking like a rocket into the air and towards the bird. She had moved as fast as she could, so that she would be able to get up high enough before they spotted her and moved. She made hand signs, grinning as she felt her chakra system change, instead of just using her own chakra, she changed her chakra system.

The flow of her chakra changed, as she moved her hands in flashing movements.

Tori, inu, tori, u, saru, u mi, tatsu.

Her body glowed briefly, as her chakra system changed, the flow of her chakra changing, as she channelled her chakra to feet, and, using her momentum flipped, falling a little short of hitting the bird hard enough to destroy it with her chakra. She fell towards the ground, her hands moving fast again in the reverse order of the hand signs she had just done.

Tatsu, mi, u, saru, u, tori, inu, tori.

The earth moved with the power of her fall, as she slammed into the ground, her chakra cushioning her fall, and the glow around her body faded, her chakra system back to normal. She watched with pleasure as the bird spun towards the ground, the clay falling off it as the chakra that had previously held it together had gone. Her grin widened as she felt the chakra she had stolen pulse through her system, before she punched the ground with it, to try and get it out of her system as fast as possible.

It had taken her, Shizune and Tsunade a long time to finish that jutsu. It had taken a while to figure out the best hand signs, and the order that they had to go in, to get the right effect. When they had first tried it, Shizune had almost destroyed her own chakra system, if it weren't for Tsunade's quick thinking and reflexes.

But when they had finished it… it was a great jutsu, perfect for Sakura.

What it did… it changed Sakura's chakra system, changing the flow of her chakra, and therefore, how she used it and manipulated it. The effect of it was that instead of pushing out chakra it sucked it in, like what happened when you changed the direction of an outward flowing currant. She had taken the chakra from the bird, with one small touch. All it had taken was a soft brushing of her chakra pooled feet, and the chakra had been sucked up for the bird, and into Sakura. There were some dangers of the jutsu…

Hence the reason why she had tried to get the foreign chakra out of her system before it had caused damage.

She grinned, trying hard not to laugh as the orange masked man gave a small squeal of fear, and wrapped his arms around his partner. The smirk was wiped off her face, as they disappeared, and she realised that that was what the orange masked man could do. She watched silently, as they reappeared across from her, the dust and debris from the fallen bird and her punch filling the air between her and the Akatsuki members.

Game on.

SSS

Whoop whoop!

It is on like Donkey Kong! he he, thats what one of my friends would say...

I love doing fighting scenes… I always get so into it!

Next chapter might be a while… dono… we'll see…

REVIEW!


	25. Chapter 25

I got my first 'flamer' today…

Fun fun… not.

Well, to be honest, it hurt me a little, as I was unsure if the words were a flamer, or an extremely blunt and honest opinion of my story… either way, it was going to hurt a little, but I had decided when I began putting up my stories, that I did not really care what people thought of my stories.

Sure, it's great if people like them, and I welcome any constructive crit, and any complements… but in the end, if people tell me that they hate my story, or that it is boring and pointless, then really, I don't care.

And I am aware that I have rushed the majority of this story, and that it is very confusing with the set time and place. I will not try to make excuses, cause, yes, I know it is slack, and horrible to read because of it, but as I have said, I am trying to fix that, and am going for quality and quantity now, instead of just getting it out as fast as possible.

I will take it to mind, and will try to make it better, as I want to try and be the best that I can, because I want to, not because other people tell me. Everybody has a right to their opinion, and everybody has a right to not take someone else's opinion and have to do by it…

Anyway, enough of my ranting, here is the next chappie…

But be warned, it is a very violent and graphic chappie, as it contains 'nightmares' from the sharingan… not fun to write…

SSS

The bright noon sun shined brightly on the small path that made its way through the trees. Parts of the path were completely destroyed; pieces of bracken and rocks were strewn across the path, while some parts were completely unrecognisable by the massive craters and fissures that ran along side the path, and through it. At the current moment though, the woman who was partially to be blamed for the state of the path was a little busy… and really did not care.

She threw herself to the ground, dodging the attack by a whisker, the fiery inferno blowing over her head, the heat of it causing her to wince, as she coughed the smoke out of her system. Luckily for her though, the attack had been a complete combustion fire attack, and had lots of heat… instead of a nasty side effect of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Sakura rolled on the ground, managing to hide behind a tree, and before performing hand signs quickly, and setting the genjutsu in place. She heard a yell, and allowed herself to give a small, smug smirk. Finally, one of her attacks had had an effect.

She had been throwing jutsu after jutsu at them, trying everything that she had in her to attack and injury the Akatsuki members, but nothing had seemed to work. The man with the orange mask had simply disappeared, and then reappeared with his partner somewhere else, leaving her attacks useless.

She gave a small growl, and then, using one of Kakashi's better used jutsus, or at least well used on her, she sunk into the ground, masking her chakra, and moving silently through the earth, as she listened to the talking of the Akatsuki members.

"Where did she go, un?"

"Tobi does not know… Maybe the pretty died!" there was a wail of despair. "Tobi did not want the pretty lady to die…"

"For Kami… She was trying to kill you Tobi, yeah!"

"OH… Tobi is not so sad then… but the pretty lady was pretty…"

Sakura choose that moment to set her plan into action, as she spring out of the earth, her fists laden with chakra as she punched the ground sharply, causing the blond haired man to go flying back, straight through several trees, until her hit one, and lay motionless at the bottom of it.

The man with the orange mask turned to look at her, his gaze penetrating and, surprisingly for the man who had seemed so child like moments before, deadly. Sakura felt a shiver go down her spine as the tone of the man's voice changed, sending more shivers down her spine, as the fear set in, causing her to freeze up in fear and horror.

"Well, well, well… now that he is out of the way, I can get to business…" his voice sounded deep, low and rather chilling, with a sadistic edge to it, and a feel of pleasing anticipation as he stalked towards the still frozen woman, her green eyes wide with the ancient fear looming over her.

She tried helplessly to move, as the man stepped closer to her, emitting an air, much like that of a predator stalking his prey. She flinched, her shuddering increasing as the man stood in front of her, his hand reaching out to take her still outstretched fist in his hand, his thumb caressing it slowly, as Sakura blinked, and reeled back from what she saw behind the mask.

Bright, blood red eyes looking back at her, the black tamoe in them spinning slowly, before the speed increased, drawing her in with its hypnotic swirling.

SSS

Sakura… Sakura… Sakura…

Bright images flashed behind her eyes, as she saw images of her past, those ones that had tortured her since her gennin days.

The image of Kakashi, trapped in the water globe that Zabuza was holding, and Sasuke laying on the ground, coughing up blood as the clone stood harder on his chest, cracking noises filling the air. The utter feeling of helplessness…

When she had thought that Sasuke was dead, the needles that the boy, Haku had thrown at him sticking out of him, making him some demented human pincushion.

She felt a shock of pain stab through her, as her eyes opened to look back into the blood red eyes, so many painful images crushing her mind, a scene in which she saw the village destroyed, as faceless and dangerous shinobi ran through it, killing innocent civilians as the ran, screaming for their lives, as woman were thrown onto the ground, their clothes being ripped off them, and the men attacking them, raping them on the grounds that had once been their home, and their protection. The children of the village being slaughtered, and tortured, sick bastards doing the same thing that they had done to the mothers, as to the younger woman, and girls, laughing in pleasure as the girls screamed in pain, and had their throats slit.

She saw her comrades fall, one by one, as she was forced to stand and watch them die, starting with people that she knew only a little bit, up until she was watching the whole of rookie nine being killed, their sensei's forced to watch, as one by one, her friends were killed.

Kiba, who had seemed like a copy of Naruto, (but more cunning and more cocky), was kicked onto the ground, his dog, Akamaru leaping out the try and protect his master, but hit back, shurikun embedding themselves into the white dog's fur, turning the dog's fur red, before his was kicked into the river that flowed through Konoha, turning the clear water red. The dog struggled, unable to lift it self up, as he drowned, the light fading from his eyes, as Kiba gave a wild howl and threw himself at the killer, ending in the same way as his loyal friend. Shino, his bugs swarming around him, as fire consumed the droning black cloud, and then caught onto Shino, his glasses melting off of his face, as he was consumed by the burning blue flame.

Then Hinata… shy, sweet, innocent Hinata…

She had fallen to her knees, her Byakugan failing, as the veins faded from, around her eyes, and she fell back, her pale orbs rolling into the back of her head, but not before a shinobi grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder, darting off with her, as she fell limp on his back, a blade in her back, bleeding, had clothes partially torn, bleeding, her mouth dropping open in pain, as the man dropped her like a sack of potatoes on the ground, the black dressed men did horrible things to her…

Sakura tried to close her eyes, blocking out the images, but they did not stop.

Ino was thrown on the ground, kicking and screaming, and as a man tried to enter her roughly, before she dug her nails into his eyes, and was killed, a kunai hastily pulled across her throat, and then stabbed a few time in her chest for good measure. Shikamaru, struggling against another shinobi's grip, as he watched the violation and death of his team mate, before he was killed, his head cut from his neck with a bloody katana as the same shinobi that had killed Ino killed him, and then killed Choji, dragging the already bloody katana that he had used for Shikamaru's decapitation, down along the big man's stomach, and pulling the bloody organs from his body and stuffing it into the Leaf shinobi's mouth, laughing as he commented, "Here fat boy, eat, since you seem hungry for it.".

Sakura threw up, falling to the ground as the images kept flashing behind her eyes, not sparing her any details as she could see the pain and horror on all of her comrades faces. She moaned, trying to block out the sounds that were ringing in her ears. For a brief moment, she looked up, and to the orange masked man in front of her, her green eyes unintentionally begging for him to stop, to not show her anymore… because she knew who was next…

Sai…

He was fighting, struggling for his life, his dark eyes burning for the first time that she could remember, as he moved his hand across the white page in a lighting fast stroke, trying to use the ink, that was his weapon, to kill the shinobi attacking him. They laughed, as one man shot forward, and poured something in Sai's ink supply, watching gleefully as the ink exploded, spraying black and red ink everywhere, the once pure scroll that had been Sai's, now a red colour, with black mixed into his blood…

Kakashi…

The sharingan was in the enemy's hand, as he laughed at the once proud, but now defeated man, forced to his hands and knees before him, and as the shinobi threw an explosive tag, and blew up the memorial stone beside where Kakashi was kneeling. Sakura knew what would have happened, she could see it now, Kakashi standing in front of the grey stone, thinking of his comrades and talking to them, as the shinobi attacked the village, the famous Copy Nin finally taken by surprise, as the shinobi had swarmed the place, Kakashi fighting valiantly, using his chidori to kill the twenty or so men that were laying around him. The enemy laughed again, jerking Kakashi's head up by pulling on the mop of silver grey hair, and stabbing a piece of stone from the memorial stone into Kakashi's last remaining eye. Blood was trickling down Kakashi's face, as Sakura cried, her head in her hands, at the sight of the bloodied sockets, where Kakashi's eyes had been.

Naruto…

'No… No NO NO NO NOOOOOOO!'

She could feel her inner scream, as the invader was kicked out of her mind, Sakura pulling herself into a ball, as she whimpered, the images too much to handle, too much for her brain to be able process that she never saw Naruto's death…

Thank Kami… was her last thought, as her head fell back, and she lay still, unconscious from the emotional pain that had crippled her.

SSS

Itachi watched as the man walked calmly out of the trees, the bright orange mask that he normally wore gone, and his face shown for anyone stupid enough to be around to see. He looked like any other Uchiha, pale skinned, rather good looking, even though he was definitely older than most Uchiha's… or… actually, all of them. He had dark eyes, black pits of despair, as some people had thought them to be, in their last moments of course. He was tall as well though, with dark, messy hair, and physically… extremely intimidating.

"You seemed to have missed out about mentioning anything about me in this story telling of yours Itachi… judging from the shocked look on your brother's face." The man gave a humourless chuckle as he looked at the shocked and horrified look on Sasuke's face.

"Madara…?" Sasuke repeated, examining the man in front of him, who looked like he was in his late twenties. "As in Uchiha Madara… but you were… are… dead…"

"Well obviously not, my dear cousin." Madara gave an evil smirk, wondering how much Itachi had actually managed to tell him. "And seeing you now… it really raises an old man's hopes you know that."

Itachi kept his face straight, although all he wanted to do was try and kill the man who was only concerned in getting as much power as possible. He hated this man, this ancestor of his. It was all his fault anyway… he was the reason Itachi had been trying to train Sasuke up… he was the reason for the whole thing.

Madara gave a smooth laugh, a delighted grin coming to his face, as he inspected the younger Uchiha brother. "I have heard many things about you Sasuke-kun. I really do hope that you will live up to it. After all, are you not the one who killed Orochimaru?"

Itachi could not help but tense at that. He had not heard the news.

"…" Sasuke stayed silent, but the words he did not say, said it all. He had killed the snake sannin before he had left, to hunt after Itachi. The man was mad, if he thought that Sasuke was going to just give him his body, just like that. No… Sasuke had only gone with the sannin to use him, to gain power and to learn the forbidden jutsu. He had never had any intention of letting the paedophile take over his body. Sasuke was planning to recreate the Uchiha clan, rebuild it with a selection of strong woman, preferably kunoichi.

He was never going to let the snake hold him back from his plans.

Madara raised his eyebrows at Itachi, knowing perfectly well that Itachi had had no idea of the snake sannin's demise. "Itachi… you have only been distracted for almost four days, and yet, you are already confused and left behind on the times. I am really not sure whether that pink haired kunoichi is good for you…"

And with that sentence, the bait was set.

Itachi ignored the statement, although he had to admit, his pulse jumped a little when the Uchiha had said that. It meant that Madara knew that Sakura was around… either that, or he had guessed, and gotten the dart right on the target. It took all of his self control, and acting skills to resist making a scene, and to lift his eyebrow delicately and questionably, and look at the older Uchiha with some surprise.

Sasuke on the other hand, was less conspicuous, and glared at the elder with hidden hatred and horror.

"Where is she?"

Madara gave a small smirk, and then turned his gaze from Itachi to Sasuke. "Oh… that's right, she was your team mate, wasn't she? I can see that you had a bond with her…"

Key word: 'had'

As in, did have, but not anymore. As in, either you two had a massive fight, and hate each other with a passion, or one of you is dead. But Sasuke was still alive and kicking, his breath coming in short pants as he tried to keep control of the curse mark that lay on his neck. It was burning him now, the fact that Sakura could be dead, after she had just helped him… and after he had realised that she was perfect for his plans, and for his future…

"What did you do to her…?" he kept his voice low and threatening, as Itachi held out his arm, blocking his younger brother from doing anything stupid, although he felt the same way. He had to look at it logically. If Sakura was dead, which, considering the circumstances, and the opponent she would have been fighting, it was highly likely, then Itachi would have to make sure that none of the other people that he would consider as being anywhere near close to his heart died. In short, he had to make sure that Sasuke stayed alive.

Madara gave a smirk.

"Nothing that your brother would not hesitate to do."

'kill her… torture her with the sharingan…' the thoughts ran through the brothers' mind's as they both looked at each other, Sasuke with some panic, and worry, while Itachi kept his face calm, and hid the inner turmoil he felt inside. It was what the older of the Uchiha brothers would have done, if she had been some random Leaf kunoichi that he had met.

"Why does it even matter?" Madara hedged, his smirk growing as he watched the reaction he was getting out of the younger clan members, in particular the younger one.

"It was not like she was worth anything…"

Sasuke almost exploded, the curse mark rapidly crawling across his skin as he snarled at Madara. Itachi grabbed a hold of Sasuke, and looked him in the eyes, with his sharingan activated, the Mangekyo spinning slowly with his pupil. He pulled his brother in, and spoke to him, using the blood line technique.

"Do not rise to his bait. For all we know, Sakura could still be alive, and if she is not, what are you going to gain by attacking Madara. Nothing. He is too strong, and is the one who helped me kill the entire clan. You could not have thought that I would have been able to do it all in one night. I only had a limited time, and Madara was the one who stepped forward, and offered his services to help me, in exchange for help in a project of his. It was him who was the one that told Shishui about me, and who caused the unrest in the clan, egging them on with the ideas of power, that he knew they would never obtain."

Itachi abruptly released the jutsu, watching with disinterest as the curse marks inky black tattoo's pulled back, before disappearing altogether to Sasuke neck, and as Sasuke gave a small nod, and stood back, calm at last, his brother's words finally getting to him.

Itachi was right, and Sasuke knew it.

He listened with half of his brain, to the words that Itachi and the clan killer were saying, and nodded his head and spoke up occasionally to agree with the plan that they were setting up. Itachi had managed to pull it off, to convince Madara that the anger had stemmed from the leaf village, and what they had done to the clan, that Sasuke was different to Itachi, and Itachi was glad to finally have his little brother back, and safe, instead of at the mercy of Konoha and Orochimaru.

While Itachi and Madara agreed to move their meeting place some where else, their planning of the demise of Konoha to be schemed elsewhere, Sasuke could not help but think of what was going to happen now, and whether Sakura was actually alive or not.

It was funny, how twelve hours ago, Sasuke had been trying to convince himself that it did not matter if he killed Sakura Haruno with his own hands, by his own katana… and now…

He was trying to imagine what it would be like if she were there, with him, instead of Itachi, calming him down like she had in the Forest of Death, when he had lost control, and she had given him a hug, and begged him to stop scaring her… and he had listened. If it had been her hug, that had pulled him out of the rage, instead of the news of her death, that put him into it.

He could only hope that she was still alive, as Itachi manoeuvred his plan into place.

SSS

I hope that this chapter was satisfying to all of you readers out there, and that you are looking forward to the final plan of the story… cause I must say, I am.

Read and review!


	26. Chapter 26

Hey guys! It has been ages since I have updated, and I am sorry, but it took me a while to get this chapter right! It might take me a while for the next one as well… hectic times I tell you, hectic times…

SSS

Sakura coughed her throat dry and rasping. Her body was aching, and her head pounding, as she tried to move from where she was a hard and unmoving surface below her. A tingling feeling overwhelmed her body as she felt stones and marks from the grass imprint on her skin. She had no idea where she was at that moment, but all that she knew was that it was very uncomfortable, and obviously somewhere outside, and that her whole body felt like it was on fire.

Muscles screaming in pain, as she tried to move, sitting up more, so that she could look around her. But in doing so she caused the wounds in her side and body to sting, and more of her precious blood spilling out of the cuts.

She realised that she was near the path where she had first taken shelter from the storm. The path was well and truly destroyed, her fists doing more damage to the area than what she had managed to do to her enemies. She remembered fighting the blond man and the orange masked man becoming scarier… but from that point on, she could not remember, her mind blocking out any images or information on the subject until she could handle it.

She felt her head pound harder, as she tried to fight off the nausea, but the smell of vomit on the ground near her only made it worse. She felt the bile fight at her throat, before she gave in, and stood up shakily, kicking at the ground, before she opened her mouth, and emptied her stomach. Feeling even worse than before, Sakura stumbled back, making her way to the nearest tree. She leaned her back up against it, and slumped down to the bottom, twisting her neck as she tried to get rid of the kinks in it.

Reaching for the pitiful amount of chakra that she had left, she assessed her situation, healing what injuries that she could, focusing on the more life threatening ones, such as the stab wound in her side, that had created the pool of blood beside where she had been dead to the world. Once she had used almost all of her chakra up, she paused, saving the rest of it in case she needed it. She had to have someway to protect herself, seeing that she had no weapons on her, as they all seemed to have been taken from her, and that even if she did have a weapon, she was too exhausted to move.

Giving a small moan, Sakura remembered what had happened to her, the man with the Sharingan, and the orange mask. The memories would haunt her for the rest of her life, even if they were only a genjutsu. Her body tried to throw up again, but Sakura held it down, knowing she was going to need all the energy that she had for waiting out the night and longer. She knew that she was in no condition to travel, barely able to stand up, let alone travel to Konoha, so she stayed where she was, hoping that the Leaf shinobi would get to her, and soon.

She had to be strong.

SSS

'Drip… drip… drip…'

The dripping water echoed through the tunnel. It was the only sound in the corridor, other than the almost silent steps of the men walking down it, their black silhouettes almost invisible in the dark, gloomy and damp underground passage. The air was cold, and stale, missing the fresh crisp taste to it that the air above the ground had, and this air was tainted with darker smells… mostly blood, but a bitter aftertaste lingered in the air as well.

Power. It radiated from the leading man, his dark black hair held back by a bright orange mask with a swirl on it, who had suddenly decided to cut through the silent with a knife, his voice sharper and brighter than steel as he began to chatter on about nonsense and about how great it was to have Sasuke-kun joining them, and taking over Kisame's role as Itachi's partner, seeing as Kisame had 'mysteriously' died.

Itachi followed the orange masked man into the depths of the underground hideout, his black and red cloak back around his shoulders along with a blond haired Akatsuki member, as he glanced back at his younger brother. Sasuke had come with him, following his brother with wary trust, as he did what the older Uchiha told him to do.

Although there were still many unanswered questions on Sasuke's mind, he held back, biting his tongue in the figurative sense. He still needed to find out why Itachi and Sakura had even been interacting, as he could not see Sakura just leaving Konoha to join Itachi, a traitor to the village, just out of whim. He knew that there had to be something more to it. But for now, he was content to wait, and tag on Itachi's lead, before getting his answers.

The man that they were following was no longer Uchiha Madara, but the carefree, seemingly innocent and silly Tobi. Itachi had known that there had been something wrong with the man, ever since he had come to the Akatsuki, and it had not taken him long to figure out that it as the same man who had helped him kill the entire clan with.

According to Madara what knew, Sasuke had no idea of his involvement in the massacre, and the younger Uchiha blamed it on Konoha. This was all a part of the plan, in which the brothers would rid the world of the pest that was called Madara. They had joined the Akatsuki, or at least Sasuke was going to, as soon as they got the chamber where the rites of passage would be held.

A flicker of a thought passed in Itachi's mind, as he looked at his younger brother, wondering what had happened to the pink haired woman, for the thirty ninth time that day. He could not help, but wish that she was okay, to think of her, dead and her last moments in pain… going the same way that his mother had died… it effected Itachi somehow, causing him to feel a pain in his heart at the idea of it. He had grown fond of the girl, and he did not try to deny it. Hell, he had even been counting the number of times that he had thought of her. This train of thought had been the thirty ninth time that day…

It had been a long day.

SSS

Sakura watched, as the light faded from the sky, leaving her stranded in the dark. She watched, as the sun set, with brilliant colours, and wondered… what her friends in Konoha would be doing right now. Would they be worried for her, or waiting patiently with faith for her to return? Would they have sent out a search party, or wait it out, for her to come home.

She did not know.

The last of the sun's rays disappeared over the horizon, and all that was left was the afterglow, as she waited, thinking back on her memories, and thinking about Itachi. She watched, as one by one, the shy stars peeped out from behind the sky's folds, and showed themselves to Sakura. She smiled to herself, refusing to fall asleep, knowing that she needed to stay awake for her safety.

She took the night in shifts… or rather, she would have, if there was another person to share the shifts with. Instead, it was one long endless night, as she waited, for the dawn to break, and hopefully, for the back up squad to come for her.

The night was quiet, as she waited, listening with wide eyes, as the night sounds surrounded her. The occasional rustle in the bushes, an owl hooting out there, somewhere, and a snuffling noise of a hedgehog moving about, looking for its meal drifted softly to her ears. They had seemed like nothing, not important, when she had done missions with other people, but now, that she was alone, the sounds held threats in them, underestimated noises, in which an assassin could be hiding behind, waiting for her to let down her guard.

It was not until the dark before dawn, that she fell into a fitful sleep, her mind still trying desperately to stay awake, scared of the nightmares haunting her every waking moment. Her imagination remembered the images, every detail perfect in its likeness to those shown to her by the masked shinobi.

She shuddered, the nightmare playing out like how the sharingan had shown her, as she screamed, the sound muffled by her arm, as she held it up in front of her, like a barrier.

With a sudden jerk, she was pulled out of her sleep, stifling a groan as she rose. Her limbs were still sore, and she could feel that her wounds were still unhealed, and her chakra was still low. It was like she had had all the life sucked out of her. A chakra signal suddenly came into her senses, and she froze, her body rigid as she pulled out a kunai, and armed herself, ready to attack.

"Blood... must have been... look at the ground... battle- but who... where could..."

Voices drifted to her ears, as she managed to move herself into the tree that she had been leaning against, the bark roughly pulling across her skin, scraping the already torn flesh. She could not stop the small sound she made, a gasping grunt, as she crouched on the tree branch. Her green eyes warily watched as she saw five speedy shadows slink out of the gloom. It was not yet dawn. Judging by her internal body clock, she guessed it was around three in the morning, the time when most humans would be asleep, and when they were at their weakest.

When she was at her weakest.

She felt, rather than heard, the single drop of blood trace its way down her arm, and the small splash it made as it hit the tree. It was all it took for the shinobi in black to find her, their forms appearing on a branch opposite her one. They had found her. She snarled, and then gather what energy she had, threw herself away from them, darting fast towards braches, and running, adrenaline pimping through her veins and lending her the strength that she needed. The shinobi were not following immediately behind her, obviously shocked that she could even move, let alone run. But they would come after her, she knew, the thought spurring her to run faster.

She felt a branch give way, and fell towards the ground, gravity pulling at her. She was unable to do anything but roll, as she hit the ground, her back smashing against the hard earth, the impact shared by her whole body in her movement. Getting up took more energy then she had been lended, so she had no other choice than to crawl to hide in the bush, cursing her own weakness and the scent of her blood that would lead them to her.

Energy spent, she lay, waiting.

Her single kunai held close to her heart, she listened as she heard the loud voices cursing on the wind, and the sound of feet running towards her. She had two choices; try to take down as many of them as possible before dying, or kill herself to stop herself from being captured. The latter was the cowardly option. She was determinded not to be a coward, and to be strong. Fight it was.

A shadow was cast over her, and she acted. Lunging out with the kunai, Sakura fought, rolling on the ground to get away, and then using the bush to duck under. A bright light blinded her, as one of the shinobi said something, and lit up the area with a muttered jutsu. she held her arm up again, trying to cover her eyes. She felt someone grab her arm, and pull it down, before she was pulled up against a hard object, and felt like she was being crushed against it. She felt the rock move, and heard a rumbling voice murmur something. She froze, all of her defences up, as she caught the relieved whisper.

"Finally, we found you."

SSS

Sasuke was thrown across the training field, as red eyes watched him, impassive as he fell to the ground, panting and wiping the blood from his mouth.

Itachi showed no visible sign of his anger and frustration, as he looked down on his little brother, no pity or compassion in his eyes as he said one word.

"Faster."

In a flash, Sasuke was up, and sprinting towards Itachi, as the older man dodged with ease, and spinning out of the way, his leg dating out to help his brother fall harder. They had been training for hours, and Sasuke was getting tired and sore, and frustrated with his brother. Itachi gave him almost no advice, and expected him to know what to do with out being told. It was only six hours ago that Itachi had begun to say anything at all about his attacks. And even then, it was only one word at a time.

"Harder."

Sasuke snarled, his sharingan flaring, as he pulled the katana from his back in one swift, violent movement. He pushed off the ground, his legs pumping with chakra as he tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his muscles, and the stinging of the wounds that he had, instead, concentrating on his movements, thinking about what his brother had told him.

Itachi watched with more satisfaction as his younger sibling finally pulled it together, and ran towards him, the speed so fast that to the human eye, he would be only a blur. But to the sharingan, he was normal speed. Not fast enough for Itachi.

Sasuke made quick hand signs, hiding them behind his body as he ran, and his arms streamlined behind his body, so that Itachi could not see. Just as he knew he had reached the point where Itachi would dodge, he released the jutsu, promptly disappearing and reappearing behind Itachi. Itachi knew immediately that Sasuke was behind him, and had spun around, kunai at the ready just as fast.

The two blades hit together with a ringing sound.

They leapt back, Sasuke panting from the effort, and Itachi watching, seeming impassive. He then straightened up, and replaced the kunai where he had pulled it from, the gleaming blade hidden under his clothing. Itachi gave his younger brother a short nod, before walking towards the exit. It was clear that their training session was over.

Sasuke crushed the frustration and anger that he felt. The Akatsuki were going to attack Konoha in only a few weeks time, maybe even less depending on what happened. And there they were, training their asses off, trying to be prepared for their plan, and yet, he was not getting any stronger. He could not fight Itachi and hold his own long enough with him. If he could not do even that, how was he supposed to be able to fight Madara, whom Itachi could not fight on his own?

Despair gripped him, as he watched his older brothers back walking away from him. It was times like this when he felt that old nostalgic feeling like when he was younger. Always watching his brother walk ahead of him, unable to catch up, or beat him. His father had always told him to be more like Itachi. At least until after Shishui died. But now, his father was not there to watch them, and Itachi was still walking ahead of him.

What could he do…? He did not feel like he would ever be able to catch up…

Itachi looked over his shoulder, and saw the pain in his brother's eyes. He knew how Sasuke felt. He always had. He had hated how his father had put Sasuke down, and made Itachi to be god, high up on a pedestal compared to the rest of the clan. That was what had started all of this. It was the cause of his woes.

Sasuke was strong. He was an Uchiha, a genius. Just not as powerful as him, but still strong.

It was time that one of their family members showed that they were proud of him.

SSS

"Better."

Sasuke barely caught the softly spoken word from his brother, but he heard it. He could see the half smile on the older man's face, and the sadness in his eyes. He could see the hidden emotion behind the crimson eyes, and watched as they went from the clan inheritance, back to their dark hues.

For the first time since before his clan had been killed Sasuke felt like he was worth something.

SSS

Well, hope you guys like it.

I am trying to get Itachi to be seen as someone who is only human… after all, no matter how hard they try, shinobi are only human, and have some emotions… even if they are buried down deep.


	27. Chapter 27

Wow! I was in a creative mood, and finished writing this pretty fast! Shocking!

No Itachi and Sasuke starring in this one though… only mentioning's

SSS

Looking down at his battered and bleeding team mate, Naruto felt another surge of anger towards the people who had done this to her. Her bright pink hair was the same as it had been when she had left, but dirtier and bloody. It was her broken form, and the blood that was leaking from her like she was a broken tap made him shudder.

It had been just over a week since she had been given her first solo mission. It was only meant to take a few days, at the very most, for the pink haired jounin to complete the mission. But when it had been a week, and still no word, Tsunade had become anxious, as had Kakashi. The old lady had talked to Sakura's old sensei about the mission, and how she had been requested. At first they thought that it could have been because the client had needed someone with healing skills as well, but after four days and no word from her, their theory had been destroyed.

That was when they had told the rest of Team Kakashi, bringing them all together to let them know of their female team mate's mission and their concern over it being a faked mission. They had no idea who was behind it, only that they had money to pay for it, and were intelligent enough to pull it off and trick the hidden village.

But the elders had been convinced that she was fine, and that she was a lazy shinobi who had slacked off, taking her time to rest and relax. So they had held them back, making them wait until the end of the week before finally allowing them to go and try to find Sakura. When there was no message still by the end of the sixth day. They had been allowed to make a team and go.

With growing fear, they had made a retrieval team, made up of Kakashi, as the tracker, Naruto, Sai, Neji, and Yamato. They had left on the night of the sixth day, six anxious days after she had left till they went to look for her. The fear and worry had been almost too much for Naruto, his anger at the elders for holding him back making Yamato keep an anxious eye on the Kyuubi holder.

But the image of her snarling at him was worse than the worry, burned into his mind for eternity.

She had not recognised them in her state, and had been unable to call up any chakra, seeing as her wounds were still open and she only given them minor treatment. She had looked like an animal when she had fought them, when they had jumped up to the branch across from her, and she had run. She had run, run from them, her team mates! It stung, like pouring salt into an open wound.

Kakashi had explained to them, before they had chased after her that she was injured, in pain, and alone, probably wary of any moving object. She would be like a wounded animal, scared and ready to lash out at whatever she felt was a threat. All of them had been scared at the sight of her, and the blood and dirt she was covered in. Kakashi had taken over, seeing as he had had some dealings in this situation, his lone eye dark and sad at seeing his favourite kunoichi like that. Even Sai had been shocked at the state she was in.

When they had found her, she had still attacked them, fighting from the ground, shaking and physically weak. Her emerald eyes were hard, yet still had flickers of emotion in them, fear, anger, pain… When Kakashi had uttered his fire jutsu, and lit up the area… she had flinched, hiding from the light, as Naruto had hugged her.

He had been so relieved to find her, and when she heard his voice, and the emotion behind it, she had stopped fighting, slumping against him in silence. She had fallen unconscious in his arms, and now he was running ahead of the rest of the Retrieval team. To Konoha, and to the hospital.

He picked up the pace, dodging trees, and ignoring the stinging of the branches as they flicked him, focusing instead on his injured team mate. The lights from the village were in sight now, as orange chakra boosted him along, and he ran past the gate guards, ignoring Izumo and Kotetsu's shouts of surprise and shock, towards the hospital.

Sprinting through the glass doors, Naruto went straight past the front desk, the secretary's cries of annoyance bouncing harmlessly across the room, as Naruto went to where Shizune would be.

Her office.

Shizune looked up at the sudden outburst into her office, ready to tell off the person who disrupted her, that it, until she caught the sight of pink hair, and Naruto looking worried and angry. She stood up, not saying a word, because everything that she needed to know was already being conveyed by the look on the blond's face, and briskly ran to the emergency room, the blond following behind her, his precious cargo in hand.

SSS

The tension in the air could be cut by a knife in the Hokage office.

The anger directed at the elders had them looking nervously at the door, and glancing in terror at the Kyuubi brat and the Copy Nin's team as they reported their mission and the completion of their finding of Haruno Sakura, and the state that she had been in when they had found her.

"…a large katana wound on her left side, from the top of her rib cage down to an inch below her hip bone, a stab wound in her back, near her spine, three broken ribs, various bruising and cuts…" Shizune continued, listing off the injuries to the Hokage, whose glaring gold gaze was levelled onto the elders. "It looks like someone attempted to blow her up too, judging by the minor burns on her clothing. We have no idea what her mental state is like, only that she acted much like anyone would when hurt, and helpless…"

"Like a cornered animal." Kakashi added, his lone grey eye staring with death intent towards the fidgeting male elder member on the edge of the group. The elder had been the one to insist that the shinobi wait until the sixth day before looking for the pink haired kunoichi.

"Yes." Shizune frowned, looking to the clock on the wall, and then made her way to the door. "Lady Tsunade, I need to go now, and check on Sakura."

The Hokage nodded, not taking her hateful gaze off the elders. The medic left, leaving them to hear what the Hokage thought of the whole mission.

She glared at the interfering old bats, and then, bitterly asked them, "Are you happy now? Since my apprentice and a key member of one of our best teams is in hospital, her condition unknown because you stopped me from letting my shinobi to go after her!"

The elders flinched, before one of them stepped forward, his voice strong as he spoke, and his one eyed gaze hard. "We had no evidence that your apprentice was actually in danger. We did not see the point in letting a group of our best shinobi to go on a wild goose chase after a silly girl who was incompetent enough to complete a simple delivery mission correctly and in time."

Naruto's eyes went red, as he growled and made to step forward to shout at the insulting old bugger, but Kakashi held him back, interrupting instead. His voice was colder than ice as he looked at the elder and addressed him.

"Danzo-sama, we knew that Sakura would not be one to take such a mission lightly, even if it was a simple, seemingly straightforward mission. We had our reasons to suspect that it was a fake mission, set up by who ever hurt Sakura, and you ignored us, pushing aside our concerns, in order to cage us up in the village." Kakashi stood his ground against the former shinobi.

"Not to mention that there had been reports of fighting and destruction in the same area that Sakura had been in." Shikamaru added in lazily, waving a file of reports in his hands, before putting them on the desk with a sharp look to the elders. Sakura was his friend too, and Ino had been sick with worry over her best friend and rival.

"Sakura is a highly valued Jounin, having passed the exams half a year ago, and being put second in command of the hospital-"

"A position which she is not yet able to handle, and one that I fear is a grievous mistake." Danzo added, looking sceptical at Tsunade's opinion of the girl. "Of course though, you will favour your apprentices over other, more competent shinobi." He added insult to injury, making Naruto see red even more.

"Might I add, Sakura is a useful member to Team Kakashi, and has healed me on many occasions, Danzo-sama." Sai added, his pale face as emotionless as always, as he listened to the bickering and barbed insults flying across the room.

"If I may finish…" Tsunade gritted out, making a dead silence hang in the room at the sight of her anger and vicious temper. "Sakura is a valued asset to the village and loosing her would have been a blow to the village and to the hospital, as she runs it with Shizune." The blond haired woman took a breath, holding up her hand for the silence to continue, as she took a sip of her drink, most likely sake. "I am sick of your continuous interfering and meddling politics into my business. You help me run the village, but I am in charge of the shinobi and their missions. You had no right to force my shinobi to stay and 'protect the village' when the real threat was against my student."

"I have gotten reports from my… informants that the Village Hidden in the Cloud is waiting to attack our village, and are blaming the Leaf for the attack on their Kage by the traitor Uchiha Sasuke." Danzo defended, his voice growing ever so frustrated. "You are a fool to not listen to me, and we are tired of your weak attempts at running our village." The other elders looked at each other confused, obviously this outburst not being a part of their plan. But slowly, they nodded their head in agreement, except for one, who stepped out, and stood next to Tsunade.

"Lady Tsunade has pulled our village out from the ruins of the death of the Third, and has managed to raise hospital standards and knowledge that medics in our village possess. Our village's medical programs and management is envied by most Hidden Villages, and even Suna has requested for a top medic to go and help them with their systems. I disagree with the rest of the elders vote." The old Hyuuga woman looked to her brother, and glared at him, until he gave a sigh and joined her.

"I agree with Kaduna-san, although I disagree with some of Tsunade's methods and dealing with the shinobi clans, I think that we need a strong leader, with experience for up coming times. Especially with the organisation Akatsuki trying to take the Kyuubi from the village." His grating voice was even and steady, as he nodded at Tsunade. She gave him a brisk nod back, and then looked back at Danzo.

"And what gives you the right to defy the Hokage? What makes you think that I do not know what I am doing, when I disagree with you and tell you that the threat to our village does not lie in other villages, but in the organisation that Nakoiya-san has spoken of?" she accused Danzo, as the other elders and shinobi alike looked one with curiosity. "I have my own informants who have found out that the Akatsuki are planning an attack on the village in less than a few weeks."

Danzo snorted, a harsh, sardonic chuckle coming from him mouth. "And who would your informants be?" He asked, looking at the woman with power hungry, glittering eyes.

"That would be me."

SSS

Sakura blinked, her clouded green eyes looking at the white ceiling above her with an uninteresting gaze. She sat up gingerly in the bed, realising that she was in a hospital, judging by the sterile smell around her, and the soft beeping of the machine near her. The covers of the bed were unremarkable, just another hospital bed, in just another hospital.

Except for the fact that it was in Konoha.

She did not think that she was going to be returning to the village. She had though… that she was going to die, and Itachi's secret die with her. The elders… she swallowed hard, as unbidden the memory of her talking to Itachi about the village politics came to mind.

"_How could the elders have the power to make you do what you did? The only one that has the power to order you to do anything is the Hokage, and by the sounds of it, he had no idea of what they had planned… and he would not have agreed to it at all." She was sure, her voice confident and full of conviction._

_Itachi had laughed, giving her a measured look. "You know why the elder council exist, don't you?"_

"_Yes, but-"_

"_Why?"_

"_So that the main clans feel like they have a voice in the decisions that concern the village, and that they will not fight and will stay under the Hokage's rule…"_

"_And?"_

"_And so that the elders can keep control of the village if in the case that an incompetent or foolish Hokage is chosen and they are a bad leader, and in the case of an emergency or the death of the Hokage." _

"_So if the council felt that the Third Hokage was too soft to order the deaths of a whole clan, for the good of the village and to avoid war…"_

"_They could order shinobi to do what they see best. Even if it is not right, and there are other ways to solve the problem, and find a solution."_

The elders were meddling and had no right to have any say in the running of the village. They could even pose a threat to the safety of the village with their stubbornness and fondness of the old traditions. She struggled to get out of bed, needing to tell the Hokage, but stumbled, being held up by a delicate hand. Sakura looked up into the dark eyes of Shizune, and then tried to keep walking, muttering in a hoarse and scratchy voice to Shizune, "I need to talk to the Hokage."

"Not in this state you are not." Her voice was stern, as Shizune lead Sakura back to the bed, and forced her to get back into it, handing her a glass of water. "Tell me, what happened?" she asked, after the pink haired woman had finished her drink.

Sakura gave a bark of bitter laughter.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." She took a deep breath, and then added, "I need to tell the Hokage anyway, so I will tell you all when she gets here." She looked pleadingly at Shizune, before the dark haired woman gave a sigh, and walked out of the room, towards the Hokage tower again.

Sakura waited, finding herself alone again, her nightmares of the sharingan replaying in her mind again, and wished that she could see her friends again, just for her peace of mind. But they were elsewhere, some more than likely in the Hokage tower, and would be brought to her with the Hokage.

She wished that they would believe what she would tell them. And that they would keep an open mind. She wondered what had happened to Itachi and Sasuke after she was attacked, and found herself scared for their safety.

Uchiha Madara was strong.

SSS

(AN i could have been mean, and left it at a cliffy there, but i am nice, and merciful so i wont... ;)... )

SSS

"That would be me."

Jiraiya stepped in through the window, looking more serious and grim than he ever had before. The twinkle in his perverted eyes was gone, banished by the horrible news that he had heard, and the implications that it had behind it.

Danzo did not look surprised to see the sannin there, and probably knew that Jiraiya had been the one to inform Tsunade of the Akatsuki from the beginning. "And where do you get your information on the Akatsuki from?" he shot back sharply.

"I will not compensate my agent's mission and identity to satisfy your greed and need for power, Danzo." Jiraiya spoke sternly, and then looked to Tsunade, the news that he had even worse than what they thought.

"Uchiha Sasuke has joined the Akatsuki."

A shocked silence overwhelmed the room, before Naruto fell back, shaking his head in denial. "No, Sasuke would not join those bastards. He hates his brother. Unless his brother has been killed or something, he would not join them…"

"Uchiha Itachi is still alive." Jiraiya stated, and then in a quieter voice added, "He is Sasuke's partner."

"Partner." Naruto repeated looking shocked and scared. "Partner…? But how? Why? Why would he do that, after all this time of trying to kill him…?"

Danzo ignored the pale Kyuubi holder, and addressed Tsunade, his voice stronger than ever. "This is why you should step down from the position as Hokage and let me take the reins. You have no experience in war-"

"No experience?"

"-and are not suited to the job, shown by your poor handling of the last Uchiha shinobi we had. If you had just let me send some shinobi out to kill him when we had the chance, then he would not have joined the Akatsuki and become the threat that he is."

"What do you mean by no experience!" Tsunade shouted, flinging back the desk into a wall, her expression murderous. "You think that I sat back and watched from behind the lines as the Second shinobi war raged on around us! You think that I did not see first hand what war can do to shinobi, and to the village!" her voice rose in volume as she glared at the elder.

"No." Danzo had a look of cold impatience on his face, and hidden glee in his eyes as he shook his head. "That is why you are not suited, you have little experience of sitting back and planning the strategy behind war."

"GET OUT! YOU BLASTED ARROGANT GIT! YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN JUST-" a vase smashed into the wall, as the chair that Tsunade had been sitting on was thrown at the elder, before they promptly got out of the enraged Hokage's office.

Shizune poked her head in just as the second vase joined the first against the wall, near the door. She blinked at the wreck of an office, and seemed unfazed by the still storming Hokage.

"Tsunade-sama?"

"What is it Shizune!"

"Sakura wants to speak to you."

SSS

Most people show Shizune as all, 'ahhh! Tsunade is in a temper!' type, but you would think after, how many years has she been with Tsunade? Well, you would think after that time she would get a little used to the temper tantrums, and only be scared if it was directed at her.

Not to mention, who wouldn't get annoyed at the elders, after they insult you? Shizune would have heard all of Tsunade's rants before on the meddling old doddering fools and all that…

Next question from me!

Can anyone see where this is going?

I really hope not. It would ruin the surprise otherwise…


	28. Chapter 28

Another creative mood! Amazing! I almost never have this type of mood…

And here I was thinking I was feeling sick of this story, and all of a sudden I am having a burst of creative ideas… shocking.

But good.

I think…

SSS

Sakura waited, trying to figure out how to tell them about her mission gone wrong, her head screaming in pain at the amount of deep thinking she had been doing, and the dehydration she was recovering from. She froze, her head cocking to one side as she thought she heard foot steps along the tiled floor of the hospital. Then, she heard Naruto's excited shout, and saw a yellow and black blur run into the room and throw its self at her. She gave a weak laugh, but could not keep the pretence of happiness for long, even if her heart was jumping for joy, and she was mentally relieved to see the rest of the team fill into the room as well.

She gave a small smile to her team mates, and met Shizune's gaze with a nod of thanks. The dark haired medic returned the smile, and then left, leaving them alone, and shutting the door behind her.

Green eyes meet amber coloured ones, and Tsunade gave her a nod in greeting as well, before getting to business. "You said you wanted to talk to me. Mission report."

"Yes." Sakura gave a sharp nod, disregarding her pounding head, and spoke quickly. "The whole mission was a set up. Uchiha Itachi was behind it, and the reason behind his actions… I don't quite know, but it had something to do with Sasuke. But what I found out is even worse than that, and more important."

Naruto was clenching his fists, and glaring a hole through the bed sheets on the hospital bed. Kakashi looked slightly surprised, his lone eye wide, while Tsunade gave an unsurprised nod, before speaking.

"Uchiha Sasuke has joined the Akatsuki and is partners with Uchiha Itachi." Her voice was blunt, but instead of the gasp of horror that she was expecting, all she got was an impatient nod of the head and a flick of the hand to get pink hair out of the way of an emerald gaze.

"Yes, I'm not shocked by that-"

"How can you say that Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted, looking at his team mate with betrayal in his eyes. "You know Sasuke better than that, he hates Itachi! You can not believe that he would actually-"

"I know Naruto," Sakura's voice was hard, "More than what you do of Sasuke's hatred towards Itachi. I had to interfere in one of their fights, and witnessed it first hand, so stop acting like I don't."

Naruto stared at her, his baby blue eyes looking at her first with disbelief, then with hurt and betrayal, as he walked out of the room slamming the door. Sakura gave a tired sigh, before looking back to Tsunade, who had watched dumbfound as her student had snapped at her team mate, and almost brother. It was better for Naruto to not be in the room for the news that she was going to break to them.

She regretted being so cruel to Naruto, but it was the only way to make him leave, and to distract him from his curiosity. Her actions would stop him from coming back, and from hearing the information she had to tell them. He could only deal with so much at once, and it looked like he had his brain full with the idea that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki.

"It is better that Naruto is not here for this." She murmured, looking at her shishou with a weary look. "Do you know the real reason and the truth behind the Uchiha massacre?"

Tsunade straightened up, and gave a long hard look at the pink haired woman, before sending Yamato and Sai out, letting Kakashi and Shikamaru stay, thinking that it would be better for them to be privy to this knowledge. As advisors and highly thought of shinobi, not to mention intelligent, Tsunade could use some extra help.

Sai was a member of ROOT, Danzo's branch of shinobi, and although they trusted Sai, he would not be able to stop himself from telling Danzo, because of the various jutsu he had on him. Sai would have chosen to leave anyway; he had bonds with his team, and did not want to betray them. Yamato had enough responsibility to deal with, let alone what ever other knowledge Sakura was going to tell them.

Tsunade then nodded for Sakura to continue.

"Well, the massacre was an order, given to Uchiha Itachi by the elder council of Konoha. The Third had no idea of the order until after the complete destruction of the Uchiha clan."

"Why-" Kakashi began, until he thought back to the unrest during the time of the massacre. There had always been rumours around that time, and the village had become very hostile towards the clan after the Kyuubi attack, almost ostracising them. He had to admit, it made sense. "The Uchiha clan… they were always very ambitious."

"They wanted to over throw the Hokage and take over, causing civil war in the doing so and planned it with all of their members. I know that the reason, or spark for their unrest and unhappiness with their position in life came from an Uchiha thought to be long dead. Uchiha Madara. Or actually, I think that is what caused it."

"Uchiha Madara is dead. He was killed by the First Hokage." Shikamaru spoke up, looking at the seemingly deranged pink haired kunoichi with his undivided attention and interest. "How do you know that he is alive-?"

"Let me finish." Sakura held her hand up. "Itachi told me of the massacre, and the order himself, in the time that I was kept captive-"

"Why did he keep yo-?" Kakashi began before Sakura almost lost her temper.

"I don't know! I tried asking him, but he did not tell me, and he obviously thought that I would end up dead or something. But that's not the point!" Sakura growled angrily. "I found out about that, and then that I was almost like bait for Sasuke. Or rather a type of spurring object to make Sasuke get angry and attack Itachi. Itachi wants- wanted Sasuke to kill him, and was waiting for Sasuke to become strong enough to kill him, and then be able to kill someone else. He never told me who, I guessed that it was the council, but I realise now that I was wrong. I intervened when Sasuke was about to kill Itachi-"

"Why?" Tsunade's golden eyes bore into Sakura. "Why would you try to save him?"

"I don't know…" Sakura murmured, knowing quite well that she had fallen for the attractive dark haired Uchiha. But she could not let anyone know that. "I guess it was because of what he had told me…"

"I told you your compassion would kill you Sakura." Kakashi shook his head at his former student, a mixed feeling of pride and anger bubbling up against his will at her compassion, as he disagreed with her actions. What she had done was foolish, and put her in more danger than every before.

"Yes. I thought that they would as well." She closed her eyes, mentally tired. The sharingan flashbacks were haunting her every thought, and it was getting harder to keep them back at the back of her mind. She felt sorry for Kakashi and Sasuke, and understood a bit more why they were like they were like. So cold and full of negative feeling. Well, Sasuke was outwardly at least. Kakashi was only better at hiding it. But she knew it.

Thinking back on her story, Sakura turned her mind to the moment when she intervened, and what she had said to Itachi. Editing a bit, she continued her narrative.

"But I lived. I told Itachi to tell Sasuke the truth, and although Itachi was opposed at first, and was angry with me for mentioning it, he gave in, and decided that I was right after I talked to him about it away from Sasuke. He had a chance to kill me when I was talking to him, and he was angry enough to, but he didn't. He agreed with me, and then went back to talk to Sasuke." Sakura opened her eyes and looked to Tsunade.

"I left them to it, and after hearing the beginning of the conversation, I felt that they would not try to kill each other, so I went back to the path where the retrieval team found me. I waited there for a short time, but as I went to leave, Akatsuki turned up. The blond one with the explosive clay showed up, along with his partner in the orange mask." She began to shiver at the memory, and was unable to help the tears that came to her eyes at the thought of the orange masked man. The images... they haunted her, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back, even with her inner doing her best to restrain them.

Kakashi saw the look on her face, the haunted eyes, and the tight lines around her face, new to her since the mission. He moved closer, and rested his hand on her shoulder, her pain making his chest tighten. It seemed that no matter what he did, and how he tried to protect them, the ones close to him always seemed to be the worst hurt. He had tried to shelter the pink haired kunoichi since she was gennin, Sakura reminding him so much of the medic who had been on his old team, Rin, but Sakura was as stubborn as him, and had a way of pulling though things, and learning from them and becoming stronger.

But he did not think that this was something that could be fought through that easy.

"I fought them, and managed to knock out the blond one. But as soon as I did that, the masked one changed and became… terrifying." Sakura gave a shudder. "His chakra became more malicious, and he changed, becoming more dangerous, and dropping the act of a childish fool… He had the sharingan as well. I didn't stand a chance."

"Uchiha Madara." Tsunade said out loud, looking at her student grimly.

"Yes." Her tear filled eyes looked to her shishou, honest and pained. "He had the sharingan, and had a type of ancient power about him. He used the Mangekyo on me, and I am pretty sure that Itachi can not do the same things that Madara can." She gave a bitter laugh, before looking away, trying to hide her pain and weakness. She thought of Kakashi and Itachi and Sasuke, and how they had lived through what they did. She could not compare to them. She was pale in comparison to their strength. Uchiha Madara frightened her, and she wished desperately that she would never have to fight against him again or even set eyes on him again.

Shikamaru went very pale, and then gave a small sound, almost like a cough, or like he was choking. "The Kyuubi attack, sixteen years ago… didn't it say in the reports that it was thought that a member of the Uchiha clan was controlling it, as it had sharingan eyes and the sharingan is thought to be the only thing able to control the demon…"

"It would take a lot of power to control the nine tailed demon." Kakashi commented thoughtfully, as they all took in the option that the Uchiha forbearer was alive.

Everyone in the room paled, the fear in the air overwhelming, even Kakashi feeling afraid at the thought of the ancient evil, before Tsunade walked out, almost sprinting towards the tower where Jiraiya was waiting.

He had to know.

SSS

"I swear the younger one is even more arrogant than Itachi, yeah." Deidara flicked his kunai at the post, watching disinterested as it flew to the dead centre. A few moments later another kunai joined the first, and Tobi watched the target shudder with the force behind it, his head tilted with confusion.

"How so? Tobi does not see how the younger one is worse than the older? Itachi-san is very strong, and he acts like it, but the younger one is too… only not as strong, Tobi thinks." The orange masked man looked at the blond haired man with curiosity, hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement and earnestness of his answer.

"Well, the brat is just that. A brat. He thinks he is above everyone else, and that he can just waltz in here with his brother and take Kisame's spot on the Akatsuki, yeah." Deidara frowned, a little put off at the loss of his drinking and gambling buddy. They used to often go into towns and gamble, under a genjutsu of course, and drink together, picking up girls and messing around. They also played cards some nights. Nobody would go with him now.

"Oh. Tobi gets it; Deidara is missing Kisame, and is angry that Sasuke-san has taken Kisame's spot. Tobi is sorry for Deidara to have lost such a good friend." Tobi dodged a clump of clay that exploded where he had been previously standing.

"Why you little brat! I do not miss Kisame! We are S-class shinobi! Hell, we don't even care if our own mothers were killed!"

"Tobi thinks that Deidara is in denial, Kisame told Tobi about this sort of thing, although it was about Leader-sama being in love with a girl, but Tobi thinks that the point is the same…"

"YOU LITTLE-!"

Deidara ran after Tobi, the small orange masked man dodging flying kunai and exploding clay with ease, before a form appeared through a tree and spoke, the white side of Zetsu speaking calmly.

"Tobi-san, Leader-sama wants to talk to you."

"You had better hurry up, he says that it is important." The black side added, looking merry at the chaos that was set to happen.

Tobi gave a joyful wave to Deidara, who was still fuming and shouting curses and making obscene gestures at the orange masked man, as the bane of his existence loudly thanking Zetsu, before disappearing in a swirl of smoke.

The orange mask hid the gleeful sadistic expression behind it, brightness covering darkness.

SSS

The orange masked man appeared in the gloom of the meeting room, his presence making the room seem even darker than it had before, even with the bright colours he brought with him. Uchiha Madara dropped the Tobi act as soon as he entered the room, pulling the mask off with a sigh, and relaxing into the chair behind the desk with smooth arrogance.

He ignored the 'Leader' of the Akatsuki, and the two Uchiha brothers who were also in the room. Instead, he went to the messenger hawk sitting on the perch near the curtained window. It obediently stuck out is legs, and waited, as nimble, elegant fingers unhooked the message attached to the bird, and red eyes read it. Madara gave a satisfied smirk, and folded the message into small a small piece of paper, before turning and finally paying attention to the 'leader' of the Akatsuki.

"Soon." He said, his crimson eyes flashing. "Soon."

Writing fast with the brush, Madara wrote back to his informant, and sent the message with his orders back with the hawk. His smirk widened, as he looked at the marking on the bird's carrying compartment with glee. He still could not believe how foolish the old man was. He wondered again what the old man actually though that he would give Konoha over to the old man. He snorted at the thought, and felt smug at his plans, and their eventual unwinding.

Soon he would have Konoha bowing at his feet, like it was meant to, all those years ago when the First interfered.

Sasuke, Itachi and Pein watched as the man replaced his mask, and the malevolent face and cruel smirk was covered. His voice was muffled as he ordered Pein to give the order, and prepare them for the battle.

If all went to plan for Madara, he would have the Leaf village and the Kyuubi in his clutches by the end of the week.

If all went to plan for Itachi, Madara would be dead, and the Leaf village saved, Sasuke back in the village where he was meant to be.

The only thing he did not have planned was what would happen to himself.

SSS

A messenger hawk landed at the window, tapping its beak against the window. The man opened the message, a spiteful smile covering his face as he thought of the future, his future. He walked the length of the room, the anticipation building inside him, as the image of him in a white and red cloak with a matching hat filled his mind.

He paced in his room, waiting for his ROOT members to return from their posts. He had an order to give them, several actually, but first things first…

It was time.

SSS

Okay, so now everyone is thinking, OMG, Danzo is a greedy old man.

I agree with you. He is old, and he, like all humans or most anyway, is greedy. But as you will find out later, he does actually want the best for the Leaf Village, and is willing to do a lot of things to 'help' it become better.

And Sakura is having her meltdown moment and her old fear of being weak and rejected is returning, with a vengeance. But you will find this all out later, in more detail, but I am just explaining some things so you don't go, 'ok, that was a random change in behaviour…?'

Oh, and Itachi does actually have a plan!

Review people, the wonderful button is just under the story. Show your appreciation!


	29. Chapter 29

Next chappie! took ages, I am sorry, but i got there, and to be nice, i have added the next chappie as well! YAY for double chapters!

SSS

Sai sat quietly on the bridge, painting the rippled image of his reflection. The black and white colour of the ink and scroll was perfect, as he saw himself as a figure of black and white. Or at least he used to, until he met Naruto, and team Kakashi.

Although he was coloured black and white, dark black hair, black eyes, back clothing, contrasting with his snowy white skin, inside he was swirling mess of black and white, creating a grey personality. ROOT had been harsh on him, like it was with all members, stripping them of their emotions and any feelings, to rid them of the bonds that held them back, that were considered a weakness. He had previously seen things in black and white, following orders without question, but Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi had changed that. They had brought back those feelings that he thought had been destroyed, and had given him new life, and a new perspective.

If he were to paint what he had been like before, it would have been black and white. Now, he could use shades of grey if he wished too. He would paint Kakashi like him, the Copy Nin having going through almost the same thing, or so it seemed, while if Sai was to paint Sakura and Naruto, they would be in bright colours…

Though Sakura seemed a little greyer or washed out in colour since that mission he thought, thinking back on her face and expression when he saw her in the hospital. He was not sure what was missing, but there was something about the way she greeted Naruto that seemed off.

Fake.

That was it. Her smiles were like his, fake and meaningless, and her eyes had been dull, glazed over and missing that all important spark of life that she used to have. People change, and it seemed that Sakura was changing, and fast. Too fast in Sai's opinion.

Finishing the picture he was painting, Sai pulled open a new scroll, flattening it out on the reddish wood of the bridge, as he closed his eyes, his photographic memory bringing back the picture of the Sakura he knew. The life in her eyes, burning behind the forest and green bottle orbs, and her pink lips showing white teeth in her smile; that was how he remembered her.

Putting away the black ink, ad pulling out another scroll with characters on it, Sai made a few hand signs, summoning his paints, and pulling out the greens and pinks, to use along with the black. Maybe if he showed Sakura what she was meant to be like, she would go back to being herself again?

He hoped.

SSS

Two black figures leapt through the window into the office. They paused, taking in their surroundings quickly like a good shinobi would, before walking to the middle of the room, and bowing to the man behind the desk. He gave them a hard nod, before looking to the window.

"Where is the last member of your team?" he asked, Danzo's lone eye looking coldly at his ROOT agents, remembering their codenames. "Matsuna, Kakei."

"Danzo-sama, he was taken off our team, and replaced him with a younger member. Our newer team mate was killed two weeks ago on the field, we have been waiting for our old member to get the order to come back since." Matsuna answered, his emotionless dark blue eyes flicking up to look at his master's desk, respect stopping him from looking at his master's face.

"Sai was an effective member of our team. We would prefer to have him back on our team if the mission you are giving us is the one we think it is." Kakei completed the thoughts of the team, her glittering black eyes managing to look emotionless and hard, despite her seemingly expressive and childish face.

Danzo at back in his chair and thought to himself. He had forgotten about Sai for a while there. The boy could be very useful for the future of Konoha. He had untapped abilities and potential, not to mention good contacts that could be used to his advantage.

Danzo's plan was ready to be commenced soon… it would only be a single day before the coup would happen, and the attack would begin. Then, during the confusion and chaos provided by Danzo's ally, the Hokage will die, trying to protect the village, and Danzo would step forward, offering his leadership skills to bring the village through the hard time and the grief that surrounded them. He would make them stronger, using his ROOT to promote the best shinobi the shinobi world had ever seen, and he would be praised for it.

"Fine. I will pull Sai back from his other mission, and have him put back with your team." He decided, looking at the ROOT members in front him. They were stepping out of their place by being so forward, but their point was a valid one.

Sai would be useful.

SSS

Tsunade sprinted to the Hokage, not pausing as she pushed through the crowds. She ignored the frantic and curious looks of the people walking up to the tower, shinobi and civilian alike. The shinobi looked alert, as they noticed the rushed and frustrated look on her face, and the tight twist to her mouth that meant trouble to them. There was a serious glint to her eyes that made them look twice, and realise that unlike what the civilians thought, it was not just the Hokage annoyed at the paper work.

Sharp eyes watched as Tsunade burst through the doors, and slammed into her office, and as her loud, ear shattering screech reached the ears of all those in the village.

"JIRAIYA!"

The screech reached the man to whom the shout was for, and he groaned, lazily getting up from the bed that he was lying in. Normally, he would be out looking for some pretty girls to entertain him, but he had a horrible headache, and a bad feeling lately, so he had decided to stay in. It was against his nature to miss out an opportunity to find pretty girls, and to be truthful, he was disgusted with himself. He shrugged it off though, his thoughts distracted by anxious worry over the Akatsuki and the plans that had caught his ears. Still… it was shocking he wasn't out there, peeking around the female baths. He wasn't called the legendary pervert for nothing after all.

Besides, he had another very attractive woman to keep him busy, by the sounds of it.

Grumbling under his breath, Jiraiya got out of the bed, heaving his body to the edge, and sitting there for a moment, hoping that Tsunade wouldn't be screeching as loud as what she had just then. Making fast hand signs, the white haired man disappeared in a poof of smoke, reappearing outside the window to the Hokage's office, and hopping inside the office.

Seeing the blond haired woman slumped on her desk, he frowned. There were no empty sake bottles, no drained cups, not a whiff of the alcohol in the office. Tsunade only got hopeless and acted down after she had been drinking, and even then, it was a rare occasion when she looked like giving up.

Moving to her side, he rubbed her shoulders, leaning down the murmur softly in her ear, asking what the matter was. When she spun on her seat, and threw herself at him, tears streaming down her face, he was startled, to say the very least. Tsunade seldom cried, and it was only when she was remembering her younger brother, or dead lover that she cried. he knew that she grew upset on the dates that marked Dan's birthday, and death day, or first date, and on the days that were her younger brother's birthday and death day, she would drink till she could not think, or see.

But today was neither of those days.

"Jiraiya…" she turned her face, stopping her crying, and managing to pull up a calm and strong façade. But he saw through it, because he knew her, and he was close to her. She was scared, he could tell, she acted exactly like that during the mission when their team had almost been destroyed in a fight during the first war. Mood swings were always Tsunade's way.

"What is it?" he asked softly, his hands coming up to cup her face, her honey eyes revealing a serious and afraid swirl of emotions. He did not like what he saw.

"I-" The busty blond shook her head, trying a different way to explain. "No, I will start from the beginning. Sakura told me what happened to her, she-"

SSS

"We prepare for the invasion today, and we will start the attack this afternoon."

The reaction was quick, the whole room breaking out into a dead silence of shock, and disbelief.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he looked to his brother, their gaze communicating parallel feelings of anticipation and anger. Itachi broke the gaze first, looking back to the pierced face of the 'leader' of the Akatsuki. It was sooner than what he thought it would be, and Konoha would have less time to prepare for the attack. He had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and knew that he should trust his instincts, and not react to the words.

"Today?" Deidara echoed loudly, the statement followed by similar gasps and muttering by the rest of the group seated at the round meeting table. Some looked shocked, such as the blue haired woman with the paper flower in her hair. Konan leaned onto the table, her blue hair falling to cover the sides of her face, as she looked the 'leader' down.

"What do you mean today, Pein? We have no way of getting there, and the day is almost over." She flinched at the glare that the orange haired man gave her. She was the only one who could refer to the orange haired 'leader' by his name and without the added '–sama' at the end. It seemed though, that he was not happy with the use of his name this time, and the tone that was used for it.

"I have prepared transportation to the village, and have the plans of the invasion ready." He replied coolly, as he glared the blue woman down, and then addressed the rest of the group. "My source has told me that the village already knows of our plans, and that we need to attack before they have time to prepare for it. The sooner the better. They will not be expecting an attack so soon, and the element of surprise will be with us."

Kisame coughed lightly, looking to the leader seriously. "How will we start the attack?"

The leader gave a short lasting smirk, and looked at the shark man, radiating smug victory. "You will blind the village first, using your water techniques to cover the village in a thick layer of fog and mist. None of the shinobi of the Leaf will be able to fight in it as well as what we can, and we will gain another advantage."

"And then?"

"And then we take our targets, and kill them, and take down anyone in our path. We will have another shinobi group to help us, and a powerful ex shinobi to help us from the inside as well. The village will be taken without trouble, if we just attack fast and precise."

"A lightning war…" Itachi murmured lowly, and the rest of the room heard him, the orange haired man nodding, and his face grim as he glanced at the rest of the group in the black and red cloaks. He avoided looking at the shinobi at the end, ignoring the bright orange mask, and the odd stillness of the shinobi.

The masked shinobi at the end observed at the leader, a slow smirk spreading across his face under the bright mask, as the man told them what they needed to get together for the attack, and laid out the rest of his plans to them, giving out orders, and asking questions of their abilities and skills. The meeting lasted an hour or two, as they plotted the fall and demise of the great Village Hidden in the Leaves.

Finally, the leader dismissed them, only the orange masked shinobi staying behind.

"At last, my revenge begins."

SSS

"Uchiha Madara…" Jiraiya now knew why Tsunade was so alarmed.

The blond woman nodded, staring blankly at the wall in front of her, as she sat back down in her chair, her gaze on the pale wall across the room. She sighed deeply, looking away from the structure as she fixed her honey gaze on the white haired man next to her.

"What am I to do Jiraiya?" she asked bitterly. "I could not ask Kakashi to try and take on the Uchiha, because he would not be able to defeat the Mangekyo that Madara possesses, at least not without dying, and there would still be the other two Uchiha to deal with as well. I could try fighting this man, but I doubt that I would be able to beat him. He is ancient and powerful..."

Jiraiya stepped closer to her, taking in her light vanilla and honey scent. She had always smelt like that since she was young, and they were gennin. He loved the way she smelt. He loved her honey coloured eyes, even when they looked at him with anger and dislike, but even more so when they were soft with fondness, and when she smiled at him. He hated seeing her like this, scared and lost, like she had been before she had left the village.

"You can do it. We can do it. Together." He answered her firmly, looking down at her, and seeing her troubled face lighten a bit at his words. "And do not worry about the Uchiha brothers. I will deal with them." She did not know that they were on Konoha's side yet, but she would soon, as would many of the other shinobi. Thanks to Sakura and her dealings with the Uchiha, he might be able to convince them, with the pink haired woman's help, of the Uchiha loyalty to the village.

"Thank you Jiraiya. Thank you for everything."

SSS

Grasping the scrolls tight, the shadowed shinobi stood in a circle, waiting for the signal. Their bodies were wound with anticipation, as they looked to the approaching figure in the cloak of black and red clouds. They all wore matching cloaks to the leader, and all were alert and ready, blades and poisons hidden in their clothing. The leader gave them a short nod, and they snapped open the scrolls, and bit their finger, spreading the blood on the scrolls simultaneously.

With a cracking sound, they were gone.

SSS

Looking up and around him, Sai noted the strange fog that seemed to be setting in for the night. It was odd, for fog to be around so early in the season, but he guessed that winter had to begin sooner of later. Still, it set him on edge, as if he could feel a malicious intent in the vapour, and a hiding enemy, waiting. Deciding that it was nothing, only his paranoid mind playing tricks on him, Sai looked back to his work, tilting his head to look at it.

He had almost finished the painting, the pale pinks and greens of the picture contrasting nicely, yet somehow, managing to work together to create the delicate form of his teammate. He loved the picture immediately, and thought it to be one of his best works. He decided that he would give it to Sakura as soon as possible, to try and give her hope.

Rolling the paints and inks back into another scroll, he waited, watching with much pleasure as the paints dried, the dark, wet colours slowly fading to a lighter shade than their wet counterparts, and as the portrait finally looked right. There were still small patches of paint that looked darker than others, due to the water clinging to it, but he was happy with it. He then, gently rolled the scroll back up, deciding her could sign it later, as he tried it together, pulling out a small green ribbon that Sakura had given him once, when she declared them as friends.

He replaced the scroll, the velvet forest green ribbon and the off white parchment disappearing in a puff of smoke, as he stored it somewhere where he was sure that it would be safe. He did it just in time as well, no sooner had the small wisps of grey vapour curled, rising as they blended into the air, and he felt two familiar presences appear near him. He knew they were there, and if they knew is skills as well as they did when they were on the same team, they knew that he knew of them.

"What is it that you want?" he asked them, his face a calm, set in stone expression. He looked at them, the dark haired man, and the silver blond haired woman, whose faces were covered by a pale white porcelain mask. He knew that if he removed the masks, he would see that the handsome man with the dark hair had navy blue eyes, and the silvery blond woman with the childish face, with full cheeks would have startling dark black wide doe-like eyes, that looked so out of place with her bright light hair. He also knew their code names, and their skills. He knew that if it every came to a fight with them, he would be beaten, and absolutely destroyed by them.

The one thing he did not know about them, was why they were there.

"Come now Sai-san, I am sure that you can be more welcoming to your team mates." The blond haired woman said the statement in a cold, emotionless voice. It was what marked the ROOT out from the rest of the shinobi; their inability to show any feelings.

Sai cocked his head to the side, taking in everything that they said, and pulling it apart, analysing it. "Team mates?" he looked at them, and then saw it, the movement in their cloaks, as they pulled out a scroll, and showed it to him.

"Head-sama has given us permission to pull you back onto our team, to do a hard mission with us. It took some time coming, but we have managed to secure your position on our team when the time comes." The dark haired man answered, cutting off the woman as she opened her mouth to speak. The man then threw the scroll at Sai, who caught it in a blurred movement, and opened it, his dark eyes narrowing as he read the contents.

"Mission?" he quested, as he briefly glanced up from the scroll and to his team mates.

"Hai. We will know it when the time comes, and when we get it." The man gave a short nod to Sai, and then turned to his partner. They disappeared like steam into fog, and were gone before anyone else could see them. Anyone who would have seen them would have just thought them to be part of the slow, steady fog cover that was gradually wrapping around the village.

Like they were never there.

SSS

And the plot (and fog) thickens…

Sorry if Tsunade seems a bit… Out of character… but I thought that, 'hey! Who wouldn't have a minor (or major) panic attack that some ancient, scary powerful guy who you thought was dead is coming to try and kill you, and destroy your village!' so I put it in, and a bit of a Jiraiya and Tsunade scene in there as well!

It also a bit broken... Hm… oh well. That's how it played out in my head, so that's how it played out in the writing.

The invasion plan begins in the next chapter, so review quickly, and I will put it up, and get it done sooner! Remember, reviews mean a happy author, and a happy author means better, and quicker chapters!


	30. Chapter 30

I am sooooooooooo soorry for not updating for a while. But just so you know, yes I am alive, no I have not been killed by a mob of frustrated friends who I annoyed while eating sugar, and yes, i do still have a computer.

I have had a major mind block. My brain has been extremely distracted lately, but that is no excuse. I am sorry for how long it has taken to complete this chapter and get it going. But I have gotten there.

Finally. But I have added a bit of brotherly love here, so...

I hope you like it!

SSS

The thick fog was snugly wrapped around the village, clouding the lights and tall buildings in a cloudy haze. The forest surrounding the village was no better, the once deep green and rich browns smothered and turned dull and bleak by the fog. A deep sound vibrated through the trees, echoing as the toad croaked out, calling for something or someone, more than likely his mate.

The hazy shapes that were moving through the clouded groves paid no attention to the animal. It was unimportant compared to their real mission. Only two listened to the sound, as they nodded to the others, and split from the group of cloaked figures, instead stepping out on their own to complete their orders. Not much later, another pair did the same, and then another, until only four were left, waiting in the grey mist for the right moment to strike.

The first two to leave the group moved speedily, their black and deep crimson cloaks flying behind them as they darted from tree to tree towards the source of the deep croak. They paused, as they saw a small red toad with golden eyes watching them warily, waiting for them near the village wall. Motioning for the creature to be silent, the taller of the figures bent, and picked it up, as they continued in silence to the other side of the village. Following the stone wall that surrounded the village, they arrived at the place where they were meant to be, and stopped.

"What message do you bring?" the older one of the two asked the amphibian, as if he knew it could talk. It's golden eyes blinked at him, as the toad looked towards the wall, and another tall figure joined them, his spiky white hair bouncing as he leapt off the high wall and landed silently on the ground.

"He brings no news, but I do." Jiraiya's normally cheerful face was grim and tight as he looked at the two Uchiha. "We have gotten word that there is another dangerous shinobi in your group. One that you should both be familiar with." He glanced at both of the men, as the younger one snorted and glared at the elder shinobi.

"All of the Akatsuki are dangerous, and we are familiar with all of them, so stop being vague and just tell us old man. Who is this person you are speaking of?" Sasuke's blood red eyes stared at the Legendary Sannin with only a slight amount of respect compared to the elder of the two.

Itachi flicked his younger brother in the forehead, looking disapprovingly at him. "Hold your tongue Sasuke. Please, Jiraiya-sama, just tell us who we need to watch out for." His own red eyes looked to the sannin, as they waited for the news to come.

"Uchiha Madara is known to be a part of your group." Jiraiya waited for the two younger men's reactions and was disappointed by the lack of surprise from them. The elder one only raised his eyes brows thoughtfully, as he calculated and tried to figure out how the village had found out. Itachi had only just realised himself that Madara was part of the Akatsuki and was the real leader behind it when Madara had confronted them when he had told Sasuke the truth… but he had always suspected something was wrong with the boy Tobi. The orange masked man had had too much power to be such a simple pawn in the Akatsuki's games. He was going to tell them of the power shinobi at this meeting, but it seemed that they had already found out. But the real question was, how did the village know?

"How do you know this?" Sasuke asked the question for him, and both pairs of red eyes trained on the white haired man. If it was possible, the sannin's expression became grimmer, and a hint of concern lit his eyes.

"Sakura was attacked by the orange masked man and his partner, and fought against them until the partner was unconscious. Then, Madara revealed himself…" he saw the worried look on the younger Uchiha's face, and then remembered that they had been on the same gennin team. "She is fine now, a little jaded and not quite a hundred percent, but alive."

Sasuke visibly relaxed, and felt a bubble of anger and hatred rise inside of him. He could not believe that she had been so foolish to try and take on the ancient power and actually make it out alive. All he could see is her mangled body and wide open eyes staring horror struck at the sky, absent of any life. The image scared him, knowing that had they met only a few months before, it could have quite easily been himself as the murderer of the pink haired woman.

But he wasn't, and she was alive.

Itachi felt the same way as his brother, but held his temper in check better than what Sasuke had, and did not let any of his frustration with the silly pink haired kunoichi get the better of him… although he was sorely tempted to forget his mission and shake the nonsense out of the girl before she got herself killed. He would do that when he got the time to, of course, but right then, he had bigger things to worry about.

"What other news do you bring?" he asked, his face carved out of marble as he turned to the Sannin with hidden interest. He wanted to know what plans the village were making, if they had any idea what they were getting themselves into.

Jiraiya looked at the older Uchiha, his gaze piercing, "We need you to fight Madara. None of the shinobi in the village will able to hold their own with him, and both you and everyone else know that. The only way we can stop this is if you two attack him and stop him. We can take care of the rest of the Akatsuki."

Itachi looked to Sasuke, whose eyes glowed red, with the hate and loathing he held for the ancient Uchiha ancestor, and he saw the dangerous, and extremely reckless grin that threatened to take over his younger brother's expression. Sasuke was very, very, excited to have the chance to take down Madara, and felt glee at his brother's unhappy expression.

He could see the disapproval in Itachi's eyes, as his aniki had been planning on keeping Sasuke out of the fight as much as possible. Itachi did not want all the work that he had done, and the effort he had put into Sasuke's safety to be all for nothing. Triumphant, Sasuke meet his older brother's eyes, and gave him a short nod, before looking to the sannin, a feral glint in his eyes.

"We were not planning on anything else."

Jiraiya looked at the barely hidden anger in the older Uchiha's tense form, and the anger in his eyes and felt himself backing away slowly, as he grinned nervously. He did not want to be involved in the fight between the brothers.

"I'll… hold you to that… but now… I think I'll… uhh… just getgoingseeyou-" he ran away leaving behind a poof of smoke as the other two men paid him no attention, instead, concentrating on their furious staring contest.

"You will listen and obey my instructions in the fight as always, even if my instructions are to flee." Itachi ordered his younger brother, ignoring the stubborn clenching of Sasuke's jaw, and walking away as if the conversation was over.

"No."

Itachi glared at his brother. The glare normally had fully grown men pissing themselves with fear, but Sasuke gave the barest hint of a flinch, before holding himself up to his full height and glaring right back at his older brother, stubborn red eyes meeting flaring crimson orbs and repeating his statement.

"No." Sasuke took a step forward. "It was my family too that he killed, and my old home that he is planning on destroying. We will work together, like Sakura would want us to." He gave his brother a significant look. He guessed that his brother had a connection to Sakura, and seemed to respect her, seeing that he had listened to her before. But it seemed to not be the case as his older brother only increased the intensity of his glare, as he gave a short bark of laughter.

"Sasuke, do you know how much I have given up for your safety, how much I personally sacrificed to keep you out of their hold, and to try and give you a life of your own." He stared down at his brother, interrupting before the younger man could get a word in, "You threw all those chances away at having a normal life when you left the village in your foolishness. I do not care about that pink haired girl, she is merely a means to an end for me, but unlike you, I have no personal attachments to her, and your words bind only you."

Sasuke stared back at his brother for a time, pausing in his attack of his brother. They watched each other for a few minutes before Sasuke lowered his head and muttered in a low whisper to the ground, "I never asked you to do all that for me. I never wanted you to destroy yourself for me."

Itachi felt his gaze soften at the despair and sorrow in his younger brother's voice. It was true, Sasuke never did ask verbally for Itachi to protect him at all costs, but ever since Sasuke was little, it had always been Itachi's job to look out for him. The image of the cute, bubbly toddler that followed him around the house, asking for piggybacks had always called out for his protection, and Itachi had always given it, whether Sasuke wanted it or not.

"We are brothers…" Itachi murmured, his now dark eyes observing silently as Sasuke looked back up and met his older sibling's soft look. "I always have looked after you, even when you were little, and I always will."

SSS

Sakura sat in the Hokage's office, as Jiraiya went over his plans for the battle that was to come. It shocked her that the once perverted, and cheeky sannin, could suddenly pull himself together and take over things for Tsunade. He had a surprising amount of experience in this sort of thing, and along with the Nara geniuses, Shikamaru and his father, they were forming a pretty intelligent strategy for the battle.

Tsunade had left to go over things with the hospital, and to prepare the civilians for evacuation, so technically Jiraiya was left in charge. Kakashi added his worth in as well, adding ideas when it came to the jutsu that would work well against different members of the group. They had a pretty strong idea of the Akatsuki members, and their attacks and weaknesses, although there was still unease about the two Uchiha brothers.

Sakura wanted to volunteer herself to fight them, but she knew that she would not be much use, in any case, she was needed as a field medic, and she was still weak after the fight with Tobi-Madara… That guy.

In any case, Jiraiya had told Kakashi not to worry about the Uchiha brothers, and leave them alone. The statement had made Kakashi blink, and raise his eyebrows at his old sensei's sensei, but he let it be, and knew better than to argue with the perverted sage master. Naruto had not been privy to all the meetings, but he had been told to leave Sasuke and Itachi alone, and to focus on protecting the village.

"I do not trust the old bird." Tsunade growled under her breath, snarling at the thought of allowing the ROOT members to take an active part in their plans. She had sorted out the hospital, and was leaving Shizune in charge of the preparations.

"We will have to include them in our plan sometime." Jiraiya tried reasoning with the infuriated blond woman, waving his hands at her in a type of 'calm down, and pull yourself together' type of movement. She only ignored him.

"This blasted mist has been lingering since late yesterday, they must be ready to attack soon. We have no time to try and catch the old bat up to speed with the plans. It would take too much time and effort, not to mention the fighting and frustration he will give us when we do tell him. He knows nothing." She scowled, glaring at the white haired man with vehemence.

Kakashi coughed, making the rest of the room look at him, as he put his point in. "I have to agree with Tsunade-san Jiraiya-san, I don't trust the man, and Sai has told us to be wary, and not trust him." The ROOT member had grown close to Team Seven, and had told them on many occasions to be careful with what they said around him, explaining that he would have to tell Danzo if he asked about the things Sai had heard.

"See-" Tsunade scowled at Jiraiya, and nodded her head in thanks to Kakashi, while the silver haired nin only grimaced, as he added the second part to his thoughts, hoping that the violent Hokage would not hurt him… too much.

"But Jiraiya-san is right, Danzo is skilled, and is a sneaky old bugger, so he probably knows more than we think he does." Kakashi winced, as the Hokage's face went red at his comment, before she calmed down, and slowly thought about it.

She had to admit, Danzo was skilled, and he was a sneaky old man, seeing he had once been a shinobi, until his wounds and age had forced him to go into retirement from being a shinobi, and instead being a member of the elder council. He knew how to play power games, and had been doing so since before the time of the Third's rule after the Kyuubi attack. The old man also had the power of his own elite shinobi, ROOT as well, and she did not doubt that he had spies around as well. It was just as well that she knew who they were, and had a bit of control over what they did and what news they heard and did not hear.

It was good being in control; she could not help but think.

Sakura saw the smug, satisfied look on her mentor's face, and rolled her eyes, looking up to the sky as if she was praying for patience and help from the gods. It was times like these when she remembered why Kakashi and Shikamaru and his father had to be here as well. You just could not trust the two sannin to stop acting like children sometimes. But it did not matter as much now, anyway. At least, not as much as what it had before.

Their plan was set, and all they were doing were going over it, for double checking, and to add last minute details and additions to it as well. It had been decided. Jiraiya, Tsunade, Naruto and Kakashi would fight Pein, with Shikamaru's father's team and an ANBU team backing them up. Team Gai were dealing with the Akatsuki members, along with another special ANBU team, as were Shikamaru's team. Sakura was being put on another ANBU team to help with the attack, specialising in direct attacks against the Akatsuki, and defence of the village. They had some strategies set up as well, but as they all knew, things don't normally go to plan in a battle. At the very least, it never goes as smoothly as what it does on paper.

Sakura stood up, looking appraisingly over the people in the room. They were all fine shinobi, and she knew that they would win. They had two of the sannin, the legendary Copy Nin, two Nara geniuses, and the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. Even the shinobi not mentioned were all great ninja, and had amazing and strong jutsu to fight with, not to mention their will of fire. Determination had often been the key to Naruto's successes, and the whole village knew it, and had taken it as well. Their victory was not doubted at all.

It was the price that the victory came at that they were all worried about.

SSS

Bright bubbly childlike laughter erupted from the orange masked boy as he leant against a tree, the kunai he held bright with blood. He looked to the wall, watching as the remaining Leaf shinobi ran like startled rabbits. He and his partner were happy to finally be getting some action after the long wait that they had had. The command to attack had not yet been made.

Underneath the mask, the man was becoming restless. He wanted to destroy the puny village already. But no, he had decided to wait until the right time. Even thought it was frustrating, he had waited many decades for this day, and knew that a few more hours, or even less, would not make a difference to how much he would enjoy it.

Tobi laughed again, much to the annoyance of his partner.

"Why did you let them go, you stupid brat?" the blond nuke nin huffed, looking at his orange masked partner with frustration. He had been looking forward to some action, and the tired ANBU members had put up a fight, but not much of one to him. He was wanting more amusement than just the small fight they had had. Out of the group of four, one was dead, and another very injured. But the remaining three had been let away by the orange masked man… Which was the source of all of the blond man's pain.

"Tobi is a good boy!" the younger man grinned, looking back at his blond partner with glee. "Leader-sama wanted Tobi to get the message through. They already know that we are here anyway." Tobi looked back to the wall, deciding to ignore his partner in favour of watching the startled shinobi, merely black ants in his view.

His smirk under the mask grew, as he saw another pair of black coated shinobi travel towards them. Madara felt his anticipation of the Hidden Village's defeat grow, and like the beast that he was, felt his blood thirst rise up to the occasion. If these Leaf shinobi be their servants, they would lead him into the village, and the battle would begin, but if they were not…

His grip on the kunai tightened, the brilliant scarlet fluid glinting off the blade dripping slowly to the ground and though the swirling mist below them. As the drop hit the grass, with a small splash, the blond nuke nin beside him froze, glancing fearfully over to the orange masked man, as he fully realised how dangerous his partner truly was. He knew that Tobi had to be good for something to be able to stay a part of the Akatsuki, but he had not been prepared for the pure surge of murderous bloodlust that was being emitted from the man.

For the first time, he wondered, exactly who Tobi really was.

But Deidara had not much time to think on it, as the shinobi approached them, moving faster than a civilian could see, but still not fast enough for the masked man. He waited, his impatience growing, as he watched them draw closer, their movements well thought, and precise. He recognised them immediately as members of Konoha ROOT. Even the legendary ANBU Black Ops could not copy or hide their emotions as well as what these shinobi did, their emotions non existent, and their bodies only showing alert readiness.

"We have been sent here by our master to show you the way to the leaf." One of them stated, his midnight coloured eyes showing through his black mask, much like the ANBU masks, except for the colour and lack of decoration. His much smaller partner wore the same mask, and judging by her position, she too was impatient as the masked Akatsuki member, her body tense and glittering black eyes watching warily. She straightened up, casting all impatience from herself, as she too added some more information.

"Our other comrade is waiting for us in the village. If you wish for this battle to be a victory, we ask you to follow us now to the village. Our master is waiting their for you."

Deidara looked over to Tobi, his blue eyes confused, as he put together the pieces, and realised that the orange masked man beside him had a more key role in the Akatsuki than what he had ever imagined. He watched, eying the man silently as the masked Akatsuki member replied in a out of character way. The reference to himself in third party was dropped, and the deadly aura oozing from the man showed the change between hyper and cheerful Tobi, and a lethal, dangerous shinobi.

"I have been waiting."

SSS

The meeting was finished, and Sakura could not help but give a sigh of relief as she walked out from the Hokage Tower, and followed her old sensei onto the streets. She watched the man transform back to his normal, lazy looking self, and mentally wondered how Kakashi could do it. He could just store everything away on a shelf, and become so, so… professional in barely a second. He was alert and every inch the dangerous Copy Nin on the battlefield, and then in things such as the meeting, he could become a strong and intelligent commander.

She shook her head in awe again.

"Sakura-chan, why do you keep shaking your head like that at me?" Kakashi grinned down at his favourite student, and saw her give him another one of those looks that she had been giving him since they had left the meeting. He knew very well why she kept looking at him like that, and he was used to it, from all of the people that he had met and unleashed his abilities on. But it didn't mean that he would let Sakura off the hook. She should know by now that she had the best sensei ever.

It was obvious.

Sakura glared at her old sensei, knowing as well as he did that he knew the reasoning for her almost envious glances. "How do you do that? You just shelve everything all away like that, I swear, you must have split personalities or something…"

Kakashi pouted under the mask, his lone showing eye still full of amusement at the pink haired kunoichi's expense. "Can we not just agree that I am awesome, and that I have many different sides to me… almost like a diamond. I am strong, amazing, and absolutely wonderful. Let's just leave it at that."

Sakura rolled her eyes, and then shrugged. "I will agree to that, seeing as diamonds are ancient lumps of dinosaur crap that has been left to be compacted over the ages. Yes, that is exactly what you are." She gave him a grin, and then carried on walking ignoring his fake offended expression.

"Sakura-chan, I am hurt! How can you say that to your old sensei!" Kakashi had to admit, Sakura was getting better and better at playing these types of games. She still ignored him though, completely missing his last comment, as she looked towards the hospital that was her aim, and saw the stumbling black ANBU members looking ready to collapse outside the hospital.

Breaking into a sprint, Sakura dashed towards the large white building, no longer aware of the silver haired shinobi running along side her, his expression just as serious and as grim as her own. She only had eyes for the injured ANBU, and she hauled the most wounded one on to her shoulder, moving him as carefully as she could, yet still moving fast as she swept into the hospital. She shouted orders to the nurses, calling for two back up surgeons as she carried the half dead man into the closest emergency room.

The other two ANBU members were not much better off, exhausted and almost dead on their feet as they too allowed themselves to be dragged off to be checked over and healed. A dark haired man grimaced in the corner of the reception where he had been working as he saw the whirlwind of pink and white colour of his team mate sweep past, and as his eyes caught those of his silver haired superior. A look of understanding passed through the two men as Sai got to his feet, and walked along the halls, towards his pink haired team mate's office.

The silver haired man followed silently, making sure to follow a little after the younger man, and not draw attention to themselves. They did not want any other people to hear the news that Sai was going to try and pass on to the Copy Nin. No, that would not benefit them at all.

The artist closed the door to the office behind the older shinobi, and mustered up a look of dread, which looked even more forbidding on the normally emotionless man's face. Kakashi spoke to the younger man in whispers, as the artist choked on his words, not because of nervousness, or fear, but because of the small tattoo on his tongue, showing black as he gasped and reworded his words.

"They're coming today; my ROOT tea-" Sai coughed, and then looked at Kakashi blankly, as the silver haired man let loose a couple of choice curses as he realised what Sai was trying to say. He looked at the former ROOT member. He could not help but ask.

"The Akatsuki; are they coming today? Is your team leading them here?" he had to know. Sai had never been one to do things without thinking it through, and Kakashi knew that the former ROOT member could be trusted, even though he had at one point been one of Danzo's favourites.

"Ye-" Sai choked again, before managing to gave a short nod. "Da-" he fell to the floor, coughing in pain at the seal on his tongue. It would not let him even mention his leader's name, but Kakashi had already guessed. That one syllable was enough to let him know that Danzo was a betrayer.

It made sense for the ex-shinobi to be the hidden betrayer to the Akatsuki. They had suspected that there was a spy in their midst, and it seemed to be true. They had tried to send messages to Suna, but for some reason, there had been no reply back, and no sign that the messenger hawks had been able to get out of Konoha. Danzo had almost complete control over the hawks, after all, the man whom was in charge of the hawks was one of Danzo's old ROOT members, one of the first of them to be precise.

Danzo was not very good at keeping secrets and everyone knew that he had carried on with his personal pet project, ANBU ROOT, even when it had been officially shut down, and the Hokage and council told him to get rid of it. Tsunade had tried long and hard to get rid of the man and get a new person to be in charge of the emergency hawks, because of his connection to ROOT and his undivided loyalty to Danzo, but the council had overridden her.

Kakashi was glad now that they never told the old war hawk their plans for the upcoming attack. By the sound of it, Danzo was a betrayer to the village, in his desperate need for power and to become Hokage. Kakashi gave a short nod, still holding the younger shinobi steady on his feet. He smiled through his mask at the young man, once again amazed by Naruto's influence on the boy. Of course, he could not forget Sakura's contribution to the young man's change from an emotionless robot, to a young man with mild emotional problems… or maybe not so mild, but still. The difference was amazing.

"Thank you Sai." He looked the young man in the eyes, who gave him a small nod of the head in acceptance of the thanks. Then, like an illusion, the silver haired man was gone, off like a shot to warn the Hokage of the betrayal. Sai watched, feeling slightly warm in his chest at the genuinely sincere thanks he had received from the older shinobi.

'So…' he thought. 'This is what it is like to help your friends.' He thought to the warm, fuzzy feeling that he had in his chest and stomach, and decided that he liked it.

He would help his friends, when they needed him.

SSS

No massive fighting yet… *sad look* sorry guys… maybe next chapter…

There was a bit of brotherly Uchiha love there though, so don't get too sad!

Oh well! All the backing is done now! Onto the fighting, and more interesting parts! Hopefully.


	31. Chapter 31

New Chappie! Yaya!

*hides behind nearest person* don't kill me! Sorry for the aaaaaages between updates. You know, exams and all getting in the way… and I might put this story on hiatus for a short time… I find myself losing interest slightly, and it may take me a while to get into the pattern again, and start writing more often.

Sooo… yeah. Here it is…

SSS

Sakura grasped at the last vestiges of her chakra supply, and healed the man to the best of her fading energies. She was exhausted, almost unconscious from chakra depletion, and was feeling like she was covered in dirt and grime, and blood from her efforts. But she was satisfied. She had pulled the man back from the brink of death, and for that, she was happy. The other members of the ANBU team were okay as well, Shizune and some other competent medics had tended to them already.

Shoulders slumping, Sakura gave a tired sigh, before attempting to straighten up, her back clicking and joints popping from the uncomfortable position she had been in for the past five hours, bent over, working on the ANBU's devastating wounds. He had had a kunai to the throat, so the first thing that she had had to deal with was to heal the man's throat, closing the wound, and stopping him from dying from blood loss. He was lucky that the kunai had not gone a millimetre deeper, or half an inch to the left, otherwise the shinobi would have been long dead.

Lucky, but odd.

Sakura knew firsthand that the Akatsuki was made up of many missing nin that were distinguished killers, and were good at what they did. They killed without mercy, and when attacking, killed fast and hit strong where it counted. It was odd that they would miss such an easy death hit like this, and leave the man half alive, before letting the ANBU team get away with only one casualty.

Make no mistake, Sakura was glad that it was so, but she did not believe this to be a stroke of good luck or stupidity like how one of the other nurses helping her had exclaimed it was. There was no such thing as mercy or failure in the Akatsuki. This was no stroke of luck. The killers had planned it, but the question was, for what?

What would they have to gain by leaving an ANBU team go by with only one casualty. It made no sense. They were sending Konoha a message, she got that much, as did the rest of the village, but still, they only needed one person to carry a message, not three. Why would they leave three alive?

It made no sense.

She stumbled away from the shinobi, as now that he was out of the shady patch of his healing, she could leave him to be finished off by other medics. She was tired anyway, and all she wanted to do was get home, and forget that they were in a potential war. She was tired of violence, and sick of blood and pain. Just for once, she wanted to fall into blissful sleep, and unawareness.

Pushing open the doors to the emergency room took almost all of the energy she had left. Walking slowly towards her office to wash her hands in the basin in the room, Sakura did not see the person in black slip out of her office, her eyes already half closed and lidded while she collapsed on the small, yet comfortable couch in her office. She never noticed the scroll on her table, as she sighed, and rolled over, giving in to the waves of darkness, and letting sleep wash over her.

Washing her hands would have to wait.

SSS

"Sakura… Sakura, come on, you have to get up." the annoying buzz in her ears made Sakura want to scream, as she rolled over, ignoring the insistent hands on her shoulder, and muttering under her breath to try and tell the irritating blond to leave her alone.

"Go 'way Na'uto…" she groaned, "Too 'ired."

"I'm sorry Sakura, but there has been another emergency. Another ANBU team has come in half dead, and we need you." The bothersome hands pulled her up, and the sympathetic tones of Shizune reached Sakura's hazy brain.

The pink haired medic sat up, and groaned as the world spun around her. Chakra depletion in the morning was worse than what it was after she had had a night of drinks with her friends. Sakura would take a hangover any day.

Her brain still foggy, she willed her muscles to move, as she reached her desk, and Shizune handed her a glass of water, and three pills. The first two were pain meds, while the last was a potent type of soldier pill that her and another team of medics had been working on, and had finished creating. The soldier pills worked wonders, taking a while to break down in the system, yet lasting for a good day or so and coming down slowly as well. They did less damage to the human body than what normal soldier pills did, even if it was frustrating waiting for them to take effect. Normal shinobi on a mission would not find them useful, as during that time, they could already be dead, so they carried on using the normal ones. But the pills were perfect for medics.

Gulping down the pills, Sakura glanced at the clock. Washing her hands in the basin, and slathering a strong antiseptic soap in between her shaking appendages Sakura tried to do some mental calculations in her head. She struggled, as she dug the small sterile metal senbon that she had waiting on the side of the white porcelain basin under her nails and cleaned her hands of any blood still lingering.

She guessed she had slept for about two and a half hours, before Shizune had woken her up. It was now one am, and she was dead on her feet. Walking as briskly as she could, Sakura noticed that she was not the only one. Many of the medics looked frazzled, hair messy with smears of strange fluids and eyes shadowed by deep purple bruise like marks. She hoped that she was not as bad as what they were. Even Shizune looked a little more than tired.

Marching onwards, Sakura made her way to the emergency room, a stats paper clipped to a clip board was shoved roughly into her hands, as the nurses began telling her of the injuries done to the new ANBU team that had just been wheeled in.

Broken limbs, chakra depletion, stab wounds, internal bleeding, external bleeding. Organ damages done to the kidneys, a nick to the lungs, one shinobi was even gutted. She took a look at the gutted shinobi, and gave a mental groan. As wonderful as it was to bring a man back from the realms of the dead, it became tiring, and she needed to have enough energy to save others as well.

Categorising the injuries, she sent one man to be worked on by her second medic team, and dealing with the worst case herself. Putting sterile gloves on her hands, Sakura moved her hands into the man's stomach, and sorted out the innards, and had the gloves taken off again, as she began to heal the man's organs, and pull out his natural fluids and acids that would act as poisons to the rest of his body. It took four hours to completely pull together his organs, not including the ten minute periods in between every twenty minutes spent separating the toxic mix of inner fluids from his blood and the rest of his stomach.

All together, it was a tiring process, that took around six or so continuous hours working from the team of five top medics. They then moved onto the rest of the men, finishing off what had already been done.

Only the paperwork remained.

Back to the office it was where stacks of paper were waiting. The pink haired medic gave a tired shudder, and pulled out a pen, writing as fast as she could. An hour and a half, and two more soldier pills later and Sakura was ready to go home. Seven thirty in the morning, and she finally managed to leave the hospital, her duties done.

Even pushing open the main doors to the hospital proved to be an effort. Stepping out into the fresh air, Sakura took a deep breath, and blinked tiredly. The sunlight was too bright on her poor sleep deprived eyes, and as much as she enjoyed the crisp, fresh air, it would not be enough to keep her on her feet if she remained standing where she was for too much longer.

In the back of her mind, she could hear her inner saying something, but it took too much energy to listen, so she ignored her other self, and concentrated on making her way back to her house. Stumbling, Sakura felt someone grab a hold on her arms and swing her around. She almost fell, and looked at the person who grabbed her.

"Sai?" she managed to put some emotion into her voice, but only just to display her confusion. Idly she thought that it was time for another soldier pill if she kept getting held up from her sleep. "What is the matter." She blinked slowly, before yawning, and sighing exhaustedly. "I need to get home and rest, I don't want to be like this when the attack happens."

Sai was emotionless as normal as he looked at her. "Did you not notice that there was no one on the streets as you were walking?"

"No. I am currently- yawn- trying to con -yawn- centrate on getting home awake." She closed her eyes and felt a little better. A warm, fuzzy feeling spread over her limbs as she toyed with the idea of just giving in to the blackness and relaxation. It felt like the world was swaying…

"Sakura! Stay awake!" Sai shook her roughly, as sleep glazed green eyes blinked wearily at him. "We will need you soon. Everyone has evacuated and the Akatsuki have been seen coming closer to the village."

The warm feeling disintegrated immediately. A cold, horrible feeling of despair and frustration washed over her, waking her up from her exhaustion, as she felt her self curse out loud, and groan. She was not very fit for fighting or healing, and it would take more than one medic soldier pill to keep her going.

"Coffee." She stated, looking at Sai as if it were the answer to everything. He blinked back at her, before calmly asking her a dead serious question.

"Have you lost your mind, Ugly?"

She shook her head, and then bushed past him, stumbling as she began making her way to her apartment. Her legs were still not completely able to step up her brisk walk into a run, but she would still get to her apartment on time to get coffee, get changed into her borrowed ANBU gear and then take some soldier pills before running to the Hokage's office. If she was correct, she had approximately four minutes.

Sai followed her, his dark eyes stony as he slowed his pace for her. She looked dead on her feet, and was nowhere near ideal condition to fight and heal in a battle against S-class criminals. She was still a… he was going to think chunnin, but she had passed the special jounin exams not long before her first solo mission. Nonetheless, she would not last very long in her state if she did not get some rest, or at least take a soldier pill. Reaching back into his pack, Sai pulled out a small container of brownish coloured pills. They rattled as he manoeuvred them out from her fighting gear, and as he handed them to Sakura, with a fake smile and a cheery comment.

"Here take them,-"

"Thanks Sai, but I have-" She pushed them back to him.

"You look like you need them more than I do, and to be honest, we all need to be able to see our enemy while fighting instead of having our eyes burnt out of our head by your ugly face." His fake smile widened as he watched a temple at her head pulse dangerously, and she paused for a split second, before continuing her brisk pace.

'Ignore him, ignore him, and ignore him. Conserve energy, he is not worth it, he is not worth it, he is- oh screw it.' Her inner chanted, before changing her tune abruptly, less than a minute later.

"Sai…" she snarled dangerously under her breath, as she carried on walking, before she made a mental promise to hurt him when she could be bothered and had time. As much as her inner was shouting at her to hit him already, she pulled all her self control into ignoring him.

They stopped at her apartment, and Sakura pulled out her keys, unlocking the door as fast as she could without fumbling. She felt the keys being pulled from her hands as Sai easily opened the door, and handed her the pills, pushing her inside and disappearing again in a black and white blur.

"… Thank you."

SSS

Sakura gulped down one of the pills that Sai had given her, with a slight cough. Her hand lifted the glass of water with some difficulty, and she took a gulp of the liquid, feeling drops running down her neck as she swallowed. In her haste and exhaustion, it seemed she had missed her mouth a bit. Oh well, water wasn't going to hurt anyone. Only another two to go.

She knew Sai's ones would not last long enough for her, as a medic, to be fully functional for the upcoming fight. So, she put the other two in her pocket for later, and instead took another two of her special medic pills. She could already feel her headache subsiding, and she was glad. It must be the medication and the water.

Walking briskly towards her bedroom, she paused, glancing to her bathroom, and seeing her borrowed ANBU gear already hung up and waiting. Silently, she thanked the person who had done that for her, and entered the pale green and white tiled room. The uniform was neat, dark and slick. She had always admired the uniforms when ANBU wore them. It made the men look strong, and showed their finely toned bodies to perfection, and made the woman look elegant and dangerous; something Sakura had always wanted to look.

She gave a small sigh, and then, without looking at the mirror, got changed into the gear. She slipped on the long sleeved, tight black turtleneck top, and the also tight fitting pants, and strapped her kunai pocket to her side. Strapping on the standard katana, she gave a short smile, thinking of the short time she had spent training with Kakashi. It had been the one time he had taught her one on one. He had taught her the basics of sword work. She wasn't absolutely amazing with it, but she could hold her own for a time with it.

Closing the door behind her, Sakura leapt out her window, and raced across the rooftops, feeling better than ever, and more than ready to fight.

SSS

Sai ran towards the Hokage tower, feeling a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling like he had something fluttering in his chest and stomach. He would have stopped to analyse the phenomenon but he simply did not have the time. Darting in between shinobi rushing in and out of the tower, Sai paused, seeing two figures standing, motionless, as they waited.

With a short nod, he was next to them. They left the building silently, all the while, Sai's two comrades giving him asserting looks. He ran, pretending not to notice their strange looks at him, as he went. He wondered what they were thinking. He was never good at reading people, but even he knew that something was not right with the way that they were acting.

"Are you ready?" the female voice of his 'comrade' cut through his thoughts. Sai only gave a short nod, as he watched them out of the corner of his eyes, his senses focused, and waiting for them to pull out what ever they had in store for him.

"You are feeling ready?" his other 'comrade' asked. Sai gave another short nod, the alarm bells in his head ringing well and truly now. Something was wrong. They had never asked him questions like that before. Of course, it could be because they had not worked with him for a long time, and doubted his abilities, but still, they were not interested in how he felt. Shinobi did not have feelings, or at least ROOT members didn't. So what had changed?

Was it that they thought he had changed? They would be right in their thoughts of him changing. He had changed, and was now able to feel feelings, instead of being an emotionless machine like they were. It gave him an advantage to them, as Naruto and Sakura had showed him many times.

"We have taken our pills, and are ready to work. Sai, have you taken your pills, and are ready to receive you mission?" the male member stopped and looked at him, his dark blue eyes behind the mask fixed on Sai.

"Hai." Sai replied staying calm as his mind pieced things together. He should have thought of it! He scolded himself for his carelessness. Of course Danzo would not trust him straight away, and would have done something to the pills that had been in his standard ROOT pack.

The pills he had given to Sakura.

"No, you haven't. We had hoped Sai, that you were still one of us. But we regret having to do this." The female voice spoke, her tone lacking any of the regret and disappointment that her words spoke of.

"Danzo did warn us of the possibility, that you could have been convinced of helping traitors that are not doing any good to our village. But we did not believe it, and had thought that you would not have become one of them. Like that Kyuubi brat." Two pairs of dark eyes latched on to Sai, as they all drew their weapons, Sai realising what this meant. There was no mission. It must have all been a set up to test his loyalty to the ROOT group and Danzo.

"If you had still been loyal to us, then maybe you would have had the honour of working with us in the final stages of the purging." They approached Sai, as strategies and plans of attack raced through his head. His odds were low, as he had noted before, these two had been much stronger than him when he had last worked with them. Hopefully, he had grown during the time that he had fought alongside Team Kakashi.

Matsuna and Kakei both kept their masks on as they staked towards Sai. They paused, before disappearing and reappearing next to Sai, Matsuna's blade crashing down where Sai had once been standing. No sooner had she done this, and Kakei had already gone in for the next attack, using his kekkei genkai to try and hold Sai in place. The chakra bonds burst out from his body, the dark blue glowing strings going through the trees trying to find Sai. But it was in vain. Sai was gone.

SSS

Sai found himself glad that Kakashi had pulled him aside to teach him a couple of extra jutsu after the Copy Nin had warned Tsunade of the betrayal of Danzo. The jutsu that he had used to escape his old ROOT comrades was the jutsu that Kakashi had been teaching him for quite some time now, one that the Fourth Hokage had taught Kakashi. But they had only just fine tuned it that night, training in secret in Kakashi's basement.

Now all Sai had to do was to warn the Hokage of this, warn Sakura of the pills, and get some help to hunt down Matsuna and Kakei.

Racing across the roof tops, Sai felt a strange feeling like that of relaxation as he spotted Yamato leading a group of shinobi across the rooftops perpendicular to him. He recognised the feeling as relief, and stored it away for future reference as he rushed towards his team leader. Another more foreign emotion coursed through him as he thought back to what Matsuna and Kakei had said, their references to the pills and how they knew that he had not taken them. He had no idea what could have been in them, and it was not unheard of in ROOT of pills containing poisons or knock out drugs to test whether a member was loyal and trusting to the group.

Sai not showing any symptoms of the chemicals that were in the pills would have been what had given him away. He never would have given those pills to Sakura had he known about his loyalty test. Those pills could cost Sakura her life if she was unlucky and the pills contained a poison. Sai could only hope that Sakura would be able to recognise and stop the chemicals in her system before they caused her harm. He would have to go and warn her after telling the Hokage of the new occurrences. Coming out of his thoughts, Sai focused on his current task, already planning his moves ahead of how he would deal with Matsuna and Kakei, and how to warn Sakura.

"Yamato-senpai." He called out, as he leapt on to the roof before the wood user. "I need your help urgently."

Yamato looked at his young team mate, and with a start recognised an expression of worry and concern briefly flashing across the normally stoic young man's face. It was a rare day indeed if Sai was showing emotion such as that, although Sai probably did not realise it.

Sai continued talking; ignoring the ANBU members Yamato was with. None of them were in ROOT division or so that Sai knew, so he was not putting the information in the wrong hands by talking in front of the ANBU. "Two ROOT members are carrying out an important mission to Danzo's betrayal of the Leaf Village to the Akatsuki. I know where they are, but I need to have back up when fighting with them; they are above my skill level for me to handle them alone. I also need to send a message to both the Hokage and Sakura, warning them of some things."

As Sai spoke, he pulled out a summoning scroll, and quickly drew two ink birds, linking the jutsu and message into the ink, so that the creatures would land on a piece of paper or flat surface and leave a warning for the two women. The birds flew off, darting between the buildings as they flew to their destinations.

"Hai." Yamato acknowledged the askance for help, and accepted, as he turned back to one of his operatives. "Eagle, I place you in charge as leader of this team in my place, and I order you to carry on your mission without my assistance."

"But Yamato-senpai-" one began speaking, before Yamanto interrupted.

"You must carry on the mission, I have another very important thing to do as well. The Hokage will understand." The look Yamato sent his team made them wince and carry out his orders with a dull chorus of, 'Hai.' and 'Hai senpai.'

Yamato gave them a short nod, as he and Sai began travelling back to where Sai had left the two ROOT members. They sped through the trees, as Sai explained what had happened, giving a brief overview on ROOT loyalty tests where Yamato needed the explanation. When Sai had finished talking, Yamato was even more serious than before.

"Has your ink creature reached Sakura and the Hokage yet?" He frowned, as they ran, almost at the area where the ROOT members had been left behind.

"The Hokage has been informed of the recent developments, but I can't find Sakura."

Yamato swore softly, as he thought about their options. If he made Sai create an ink bird to try and find Sakura, their cover would be blown if the ROOT members were still nearby. But if they carried on with their mission, the pills could possibly kill Sakura. His frown deepened, before he realised something else.

"Have you released your ink birds yet?"

"No." Sai gave a short nod, knowing what Yamato was getting at. "I will send it to find her now."

"What's this? The once emotionless Sai worrying over a comrade?" The dead voice echoed through the clearing as Kakei appeared behind Sai, his chakra bonds holding on to Sai, as Sai's mouth dropped open behind the mask. The feeling that he had as he was captured by the kekkei genkai was even more foreign than any other feelings he had gotten before. The chakra coursing through him made him feel weak, and almost unable to stand, let alone try to fight it and struggle against the bonds.

But Yamato had already attacked.

With a sudden snap the braches whipped up around the ROOT member and ex ROOT member, as the wood moved at Yamato's will. The tree wove itself around Sai, causing the other ROOT member to have to jump away, as the blank navy eyes turned to regard him.

The ROOT spoke up, his voice even colder than before, if possible. Although ROOT members were taught not to feel anything, there was one emotion that they were affected by was annoyance.

"Tenzou, ANBU codename Yamato. Was experimented on by ex Konoha shinobi, and Sannin, Orochimaru, to have the same abilities as the first Hokage." The ROOT member attacked, moving fast as he could towards Yamato, as the roots of the nearby trees jumped out of the ground, spraying dirt into the air, as the twisting wood came to Yamato's assistance.

The wood around Sai let up, untwisting from around the younger man to attack the enemy as well. Sai jumped to the trees, ignoring the flying dirt and wood, as he dodged the chakra bonds following him. He spared a last glance to Yamato, before the ANBU member gave him a nod, and concentrated on the battle.

Sai had another job to do.

Dashing across the rooftops, Sakura paused, as she waited at the entrance of the hospital. A pang shot through her as she watched more shinobi being pulling into the hospital. She wanted to help them, and heal them back to health, but she had another job to do.

As silent as the fog, a group of black cloaked ANBU members were next to her, with a short nod, she took the cat mask and cloak from them, covering her face and hair, before they set off towards the forest. She ran, not adding too much chakra to her feet as she did so, knowing that she would need to save her chakra for more important things.

"Cat." Sakura looked to the ANBU with the tiger mask, as she nodded her head at him in acknowledgment. "You will make the first move, like how the Hokage would, and then get stay back to heal the injured men on our team."

She gave another nod, and a short word, "Hai." With a curious mind, she wondered if she was the only female on her team. The leader, Tiger, did say 'men' so she guessed she was.

'Sexist pigs…' her inner grumbled, as Sakura nodded mentally. It did seem that ANBU was rather sexist, as she remembered a time she healed a rather cocky ANBU member, who had commented that all kunoichi should be like her, healing the male shinobi and only going on mission for seduction.

'We showed him, didn't we?' her inner crowed, as Sakura smiled under her mask. she could be just as strong as ANBU, especially if they were stupid enough to underestimate her, like that one did when they met on the training fields. Fool.

"Other teams have been deployed, Team Tiger." The radio that Tiger was carrying crackled to life, as the team paused in the trees. Her distraction from reality broken, Sakura waited with the others, standing still, refusing to give in the need to shift and fidget under the nervousness of it all. She could not get distracted this far into the fight. It was to late to back down, even if she had wanted to. But she didn't want to. She had to defend her village.

"Hai, Team Tiger on standby. Give us the order when we need to." Tiger glanced around his team, as he inspected the medic on his team, with the cat mask. She was the student of the Copy Nin and apprentice of the Hokage and he seriously hoped that she would live up to that reputation.

"Hai, go on my mark." The whole team tensed, as they waited, "OK, go!"

In a flurry of black and grey, the team was gone.

SSS

Yeah… next time, I promise, there will be more fighting scenes, I mean, I don't have much choice now, I have everything set up for the fighting scenes! But all I need to do is get in the mood to write a fighting scene… I have been too absorbed in tragedies and hurt comfort type genre to be able to do it right now…

But I have written the next chapter, already prepared to be put on, so I promise I'll update it soon, with my ready prepared chappie. I have also begun the next next chapter, as I find myself in the mood to write at the mo…

Well, anywho, till next time, people! Please, please, please, review! There is nothing like a review or two to get me wanting to write… favourites and alerts are great, but they are not quite the same as reviews!

*thoughtful look* actually, it could have been the lack of reviews that sent me off this story… I don't know… short attention span by me I guess…

REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW! (please no flames though, I am coming into summer here, I don't need any more heat at the moment)


	32. Chapter 32

Here is the next chapter, as I had said, already prepared, written and checked over! Heaps of fighting scenes and stuff in this one!

Tell me if you don't like something, or if you think it needs work, cause it has been a while here, and it will take time for me to get back into the swing of things!

* * *

Yamato dodged the chakra bonds, pulling up a barrier of trees and wood to place some space between him and the ROOT member. He could definitely see why Sai had come to get him for help. The ROOT division was nothing to laugh at, and this man, with his kekkei genkai would have killed anyone else but Yamato or maybe a member of the Aburame clan.

The chakra bonds were set up to drain strength away from living creatures, but because Yamato had the First's abilities to manipulate trees, he could use the trees as a shield to protect himself from the chakra bonds and their deadly grip. The fight was tiring, as it took a lot of chakra to continually use his jutsu, but the man he was fighting was just as tired. The only problem was that the ROOT member was trained harsher than what Yamato was, and seemed to have no limits and no weaknesses.

Panting from the effort, Yamato felt his chakra take another hit as the ROOT member landed on the tree opposite him. The tree moved, the branches whipping around as the man moved and leapt to the ground, and to another tree again, the blue strings speeding towards Yamato. He dodged them, not being able to be bothered to use another jutsu at that time. The blue strings, surprisingly, did not follow him, instead retracting as the ROOT member stood, waiting on the ground. They both hesitated, as they heard a loud rumbling sound from further away in the forest, as they listened intently to it, before turning back to their fight.

"It seems we are both out of chakra. We shall have to continue this battle with weapons and fists instead." It was like he was commenting on the weather, instead of how he was trying to end another man's life, and was in danger of being killed himself.

Yamato gave a short nod, as they both began exchanging blows. The ROOT member was behind him in a moment, his kunai flying towards the ANBU's neck, as Yamato ducked, and sent a foot lashing out at the man. Kakei merely stepped to the side, before his own leg bent, and his other leg spun in a sweeping kick.

Yamato had a kunai in his hand, and sent his hand towards the ground, gravity helping his movement, as the kunai pierced the man's leg and made Kakei look towards Yamato with more intention in his stance. The first hit had been landed.

Yamato leapt back as the ROOT member swiped out with his own kunai, and followed up with a series of punches that sent Yamato reeling. The ANBU member knew that this man was as well trained as the top ANBU members, and that he could easily be killed if he did not concentrate.

Hands moving through punches and kunai slices and stabs, a pattern broke out between the two fighters. Yamato lifted his arm up, letting his arm guard take the hit from the kunai that was meant to land in his shoulder. Kakei let his injured leg come up to his hip, as he spun on his remaining leg and lashed out, another weapon cutting across Yamato's chest and letting a thin line of blood soak through the black material of his thin lycra shirt.

Yamato growled under his breath, as another complication came into the picture. He did not know that the man had thin blades set into the bottom of his sandals. It would make it that much harder to kill the ROOT member, now that he to watch for another weapon and several other ways Kakei could kill him.

He had to finish this, and fast, if he wanted to try and help with the rest of the invasion.

SSS

Sai let his ink creations run ahead of him, as he paused in the trees, feeling as if someone was following him. he waited, and felt the messages and images from his ink creatures.

'"_How much longer?"_' whispered words made it to Sai's ears, as he heard what his ink mouse was hearing.

'_A rustling in the bushes was heard, a male laugh, and a slow chuckle, creeping low in sound and having a sinister intent to it, as the creeping person spoke. "Soon, but I think you have something to deal with first." He heard a mutter, obviously also male, ending with another grunt, before the creeping voice spoke again. '"We have a little spy in our midst, take care of it." The creeping voice took a more assertive tone. "Hai." That time it was the first voice that spoke and Sai recognised it as female, and familiar.'_

The sounds stopped all of a sudden, as Sai noted that someone had found his mouse and destroyed. The last voice to speak, the female voice, was that of Matsuna. He felt her chakra coming, as she obviously wanted him to know that she was coming for him.

She was not disappointed, when he waited where he was, his dark eyes watching as she approached, her katana drawn and ready to fight with. There was already blood dripping from it, and Sai knew that it was probably more than likely ANBU blood, seeing as there had been many ANBU out in the area around Konoha trying to fight their enemy, but each and every one being sent back injured.

"Ready to die, little rat?" Her voice was how it had always been, cool and confident.

Sai did not answer, instead giving a fake smile as he pulled out his scrolls, and bit his finger, the blood welling at the nip. His finger flew across the blank scroll, as a large bloody ink wolf stepped out from the paper. He watched impassively, as the wolf snarled at Matsuna and leapt for her. He felt a surge of adrenaline as the blade of the katana cut through the wolf, before the wolf reanimated and the bloody claws raked at the place where she had been standing.

More ink creatures burst from the scrolls, as a blood red ink hawk and bear erupted from the paper as well, and Sai stood back, watching his work attack the ROOT member in turns. He pulled out his own tanto as Matsuna thrust her katana at him in a brief lull in the attacks of the ink creatures. But she was forced back before she got too close, as she tried again to slice the ink creatures up with her blade.

The bear's right front leg was reduced to a puddle of blood, before the liquid reformed on the bear, its other front paw sweeping out to try and cut the annoying pest's head off. The woman ducked, the blow meant for her instead smashing the limb of a tree and leaving a gash of claws through the bark and seeping out a red and cream, blood and sap mixture.

She cut her katana into the wolf's mouth, as it tried to capture her arm in its mouth, but the wolf only melted to nothing for a split second, before it too reformed. The hawk dove for her, its talons raking her outstretched arm, as the wolf bit into her leg. The bear rose up onto its hind legs as it smashed its oversized paw through her body.

With a poof, the clone disappeared, and then the real battle began.

Matsuna stood atop on one or the branches of a massive oak tree, as she looked down on the three crimson coloured ink beasts, and their master. She had never seen him use that jutsu before, but she could tell from the pale sheen of sweat clinging to his face that he was tired. She guessed that the jutsu was a forbidden technique of his, and took up much of his chakra to complete and keep up. She waited in the tree top, listening as she felt the ground shake in an explosion, and rumble in protest to the power of the explosion. Then, her dark eyes switched back to the young man.

With a dancer like move, she dropped gracefully to the ground, her hands flying through hand seals as a fiery inferno pulsed around her, before it burst out around her. Sai crouched behind his ink creations, as they took the hit, the hawk being blown away by the power of the inferno, while the wolf and bear dug their claws into the ground and snarled through it.

Out of the heat, Sai saw a flash of white hair, and brought up his tanto, just in time to block a hit from the katana. He pushed upwards, before the woman had spun around him, her blade heading from his midsection. He let his tanto drop lower, holding it in position, ignoring the straining pain from his muscles at the awkward pose.

The bear slashed its paw into the fight, as both Sai and Matsuna ducked, her katana still coming towards him. The wolf too tried to bite at the woman, as she used its back as a type of spring vault and flipped over Sai, her katana cutting at his neck. His tanto darted around her blade, blocking the hit, as it continued travelling higher and nicking at her arm. But she was gone before he could do any real damage.

Their dancing battle between the combined forces of Sai, the wolf and the bear, against the lobe woman had her losing energy quickly, but she was still as fast and agile as what she had been at the start of the fight. She carried on through the stinging pain of the various cuts and scratched the ink master and creations had landed on her, as she sliced back at the ex ROOT member.

"Tired yet?" he asked her pleasantly, as if he wasn't getting low on chakra and energy as well.

She shook her head in the negative, as she asked back, a hint of curiosity in her voice as much as she tried to hide it, "You?"

"Nope. Not a bit." He grinned his fake smile, and whipped his tanto around to block a hit, as he found himself flying back into a tree, his control over his ink creatures wavering. The wolf sunk into a puddle of blood, like how the hawk had long before.

Matsuna looked down at the tiring young man. Her interest in him dissipated as soon as her hit had sent him flying. The only reason she had been curious was because she had not expected Sai to last much longer than what he already had. He had been fighting with a tanto, as an experienced fighter of the blade against an experienced master of the blade, as well as holding up a forbidden jutsu at the same time. He had lasted much longer than she had originally thought he would, but she knew he would not survive at her pace for much longer.

And she was right.

SSS

Amongst the swishing ANBU coats, Sakura mentally prepared herself for the attack. They would be taking on some of the Akatsuki members; not knowing which ones was hard for her. She feared that she would have to fight the Uchiha… even remembering back to what she had been told at the meeting, along with the other Konoha shinobi, that they did not have to worry about the two Uchiha did not help ease her concern.

Narrowing her eyes under her mask, Sakura steeled herself. She was to make the first hit. She had some back up in the ANBU team, two members, Rat and Beetle were there to help her if she got caught in the fighting after the first strike.

They waited just at the edge of the clearing, before Tiger motioned for her and the other two to get to the ground, so that she could make her move. Sakura made a motion back, letting them know that she was going to attack as she leapt down from the tree. The rest of her team mates gave their nods and various forms of acknowledgement to her silent warnings, before she made her move. Dropping out of the trees, she channelled her chakra through her legs, her control over her chakra astounding as she landed with a soft thud.

A small sound was heard, as the rest of the team waited, Sakura staying motionless in her crouch, as she felt her chakra travel through the ground and into the area where the enemy shinobi were. With a cracking noise, she let a triumphant grin cross her face under the mask, as she drew back and waited for the shouting to start. A fissure slowly edged its way from where she had landed, towards the Akatsuki members.

A loud smashing sound was heard, as the power of her blow became obvious and the dirt and ground around the Akatsuki members erupted in dust and a shower of rocks of all sizes. The ANBU team left no time to waste, and were attacking within moments, as Sakura hung back in the trees, Rat fighting a short distance out of the trees, and Beetle standing silently at her side.

Hoping and praying that the members that they were fighting were not the orange masked man and his partner, Sakura waited, her blood pounding through her veins. She was not totally unexperienced in this type of fighting, no, her blood was pounding not from nervousness of the upcoming fight that she would soon be involved in, but in fear of the orange masked man. If he was there, she would more than likely freeze up in a mixture of fear and horror, which would leave her team in bad position. She could not, and would not let the team down.

But her partner thought that her shaking hands and fast heart rate was nervousness as he spoke to her in a calm voice. "Cat. Don't worry, you'll be fine."

She gave the ANBU member, who she knew was Shino, a look, as she recognised the voice from her gennin days. It had been a long time since she had seen the Aburame genius, but she could still remember him quite easily. He was rather hard to forget, seeing how far his skills had taken him, and finding out that he was on par with the Hyuuga prodigy Neji in both ranks and ability.

"Don't worry about me Beetle, it's not me that I'm worried for." She spoke softly, as she looked back to the fighting area. With a few cautious steps forward, Sakura readied herself to fight.

SSS

The game of equals was tiring them both, as the blades smashed against each other and they dodged and ducked, exchanging blows. But Yamato still gave a tired smile, as he began pushing the ROOT member into a corner. Figuratively of course.

Yamato still had some more chakra left, and could do two more jutsu at least. But from the sounds of it, Kakei had run out of chakra and had nothing left to spare as he flicked his kunai out with his hand to try and cut Yamato, and slow him down. Yamato blocked, and went to strike out himself, when he found that he did not have the energy.

Looking down, he could see the bright blue ribbons of chakra bonding him to the ROOT member. The man looked him in the eye, his dark blue ones reflecting Yamato's fear. "It was a good fight; we could have used someone like you in ROOT. Your skills and jutsu are a great loss to our village, but you do not seem to be able to see the purpose of what we are doing." The man tilted his head as he took the kunai from Yamato's hand.

Yamato tried to figure out a plan as fast as he could, as he had an idea hit him. It would be hard to do, but not impossible. He gave a short nod to the man, using up some of his precious energy in the movement. Kakei looked surprised at the action, but Yamato couldn't really tell much, seeing as how blank the ROOT member's face was anyway.

But the minor expression of surprise did not cover the shock that the ROOT member must have felt, as a tree root ripped through the ROOT member's chest, before it pulled out. The man looked at Yamato with his blue eyes and growing whiter face, before he fell to the ground, blood pouring out the wound. Yamato could not help but feel sorry for the brainwashed man. Maybe, if Danzo hadn't have found him and made him into the ROOT member that Kakei had been, maybe they could have been allies and friends.

But that thought was banished as the man stood back up, lurching to his feet, as he ignored the blood and the pain as his body protested to the movement. The blue threads still clung to Yamato, as they flickered in and out of sight, as Kakei's chakra flared and died in alternate surges.

Yamato took a step backwards, as his hand moved slowly to his kunai pouch, still feeling the effects of the other man's kekkei genkai. He pulled out a kunai slowly, as he looked at the other man. The blue strings flickered for a short time, before becoming stronger and brighter again. With a surge of strength he moved quickly to the other man's side, and slashed his opponent's neck as the blue strings flickered again, before dying out as the dark haired man swayed, falling to his knees. Blood poured slowly from the wound across his throat draining from his face, the crimson colour staining the ROOT agent's pale skin as the light in the dark blue eyes began fading.

A horrible sucking sound came from the man, as he tried to take a breath, then his voice came out with a spitting, gasping sound, as the blood from his throat splattered on the grass and over his face. Yamato bent closer to the ROOT, listening hard to hear the dying man's last words.

"Dann… zo… dis… pointed… not… bad… though… gooood… fight…" the man choked and coughed as his face paled further, and the blood ran from his body. No more words came from the ROOT agent, as the wet noises continued, before the light completely died in the dark blue, almost black eyes.

The noises ceased.

SSS

"Don't worry about me Beetle, it's not me that I'm worried for." She spoke softly, as she looked back to the fighting area. With a few cautious steps forward, Sakura readied herself to fight.

A cloaked figure whooped, as an Akatsuki member on a large clay bird flew over head. Recognising the figure from her battle against the puppet master and late partner of the mad terrorist, Sakura braced herself, her pupils dilating as they widened with horror. She shouted instructions to the ANBU over the radio, instinctively trying to save lives not matter what her rank was compared to the other shinobi.

The ground shuddered as a large explosion hit the earth. Rocks and dirt was sprayed everywhere, as the ANBU members fighting were thrown back. One member of Sakura's team hit a tree and remained motionless, while the others strained to get their feet, gaining back their balance and senses after the shockwave of the bomb. Cat heard Tiger swear over the radio, as she and Beetle prepared to fight.

"Ox is down, I repeat, Ox is down. Other teams stay back, we will handle this." Tiger was furiously saying, as Sakura threw herself out onto the field, moving fast as she dodged the still falling bombs thrown down by the mad man. Her chakra was channelled to her hands, as she skidded to a halt next to the ANBU member in the Ox mask, Beetle covering her as she picked him up bridal style and sprinted back towards the cover of the trees.

"I don't think so pinkie."

Sakura spotted a pale object falling in front of her while she tried to gather the energy to react, but for some reason her limbs would not answer her. She saw a flash of bright light as the object exploded and she was thrown back. She tried twisting in mid air to take the impact of the hit on her left side, still holding the injured ANBU on her right, but her reaction time was still slow. Her professional medical side analysed how bad the burns were from the blast, and how infected they would get after having dirt and gravel violently shoved into her injured flesh. So she was not surprised when she could feel the liquid slowly dripping from her side.

Hissing as she felt the burning sensation on her side, she ignored the warm wet feeling and pain, as she cautiously stood up. Another hand helped her up, as Beetle stood anxiously next to her. Although not many could tell, Sakura had noted the tensed muscles and flickering eyes that showed Shino's worry. She was their only medic, and if they lost her, they would almost have no hope of getting back to Konoha, after this battle, in one piece.

"I apologise, I thought that you would move faster than that." Shino's voice held a hint of annoyance under the concern, causing Sakura's old weakness to ignite. A slow steady burning of frustration and shock added to the burning on her sides. In the heat of her embarrassment and confusion, Sakura struggled to overcome it and regain her professionalism.

She shook her head, and muttered under her breath, "So did I…"

Beetle pulled Ox onto his back, as they went back to the relative safety of the trees. He stood watching the battle with intelligent black eyes as Sakura pulled the chakra back to her hands, and laid them on the man, assessing his situation. She began healing the man's broken ribs and second degree burns, glancing shortly up at the taller ANBU member, and making a quick hand gesture for him to join the others in the fight.

"They need you more." She murmured as she went back to the task at hand, not noticing that Shino had taken her words to heart, and was out there again, fighting against the blond bomber and his partner. She was so engrossed in her task, finding that it was taking more of her concentration than normal to heal and control her chakra, that she did not feel the other chakra signatures slowly encircling the battle ground.

Not at least, until it was too late.

SSS

The blood bear gave a loud roar, as it swung at the annoying pest of a woman, as the ROOT member merely dodged it, and flipped over the massive claws, landing a perfect hit towards the opening in the ex ROOT members armour. The blow caused Sai to fall to his knees, as he managed to raise his tanto up to deflect the next slash, aimed at his face. The pale haired woman gave a fake smile, as she let her blade slide under his, and forced the young man onto his back with the strength hidden in her lean arm muscles.

"I am just curious," she comment lightly, as if they were talking about the weather over a cup of tea, rather than fighting for their lives, or rather over Sai's life. "If you did not eat the pill, then what did you do with it?"

Sai could feel his mouth tighten into a thin line, as he tried to compress the sudden swirling at the bottom of his stomach. He instead drove his efforts into pushing his tanto and Matsuna's katana to his side, and away from his body. He was successful, the blades both digging into the dirt before the longer katana disappeared from Sai's view, a crimson claw taking its place. Sweat dribbled down his face and over his eyes like tears as he renewed his efforts in attacking the ROOT member. He had to get to Sakura and warn her of the danger she was in.

Dark eyes flickered over the emotion driven man, as the woman cocked her head from her perch she had reoccupied in the trees above him. It was strange to her, to see the young boy that she had known through her career who had been so emotionless and cold, to now be so polar opposite to what he had been. To others, it did not seem to be a large change, as he was still extremely calm in battle, never loosing focus, but to Matsuna, compared to how the old Sai had been, it was like this new one was dancing around in bright yellow singing 'Happy Birthday' cheerfully. The difference was startling to her, and she could not help but wonder what had changed him so much.

Was it really that Kyuubi kid? The one that Danzo was so wary of, and whom everyone spoke of? Or was it another reason, such as the pink haired girl that he had been with before. She thought of Sai's team, the one he had chosen over ROOT, and wondered for a split second whether she was right or wrong in her actions. But then her mind set returned as she remembered all that Danzo had told her of the plan and of how they had unlikely allies in interesting places.

Nobody could be right over Danzo. He thought everything through, and was logical in her decisions, unlike the emotionally driven soft hearted Hokage. The Hokage was a medic, not a fighting commander, and should give her position to Danzo, who would be better suited to the job. Things would be even better and the Leaf Village would be stronger with Danzo at its head.

With those thoughts in mind, Matsuna flickered behind Sai, and stabbed her katana through his back, the blood stained blade piercing out through his front. The dark haired man choked, as a dribble of blood slowly wound its way down his chin from his mouth. A small smile came to Sai's face, as he slipped sideways, falling to the ground with a thud.

In a poof of smoke, Sai's body changed into log, and Matsuna spin, pulling her blade out of the wood, and getting it up just in time to block Sai's accurate slash at her side. The metal clanged together, as Sai gave his ex team mate a fake smile, as he continued their fight, their actions growing more and more sluggish.

In a sudden movement, Matsuna flipped backwards on to a tree branch, and began making hand signs. Unfortunately for her, she could not finish what ever jutsu she was going to use, for at that moment, another sharp branch twisted in the air, and shot through her chest. Her face as blank as ever under her pale white mask, Matsuna let the breath she had been holding out, in a sort of sigh.

As if to make sure that the white haired woman was dead, the large blood bear slowly climbed up the tree, the wood groaning in protest of the heavy liquid bear standing on the same branch that the ROOT member was on. With a crack, the branch snapped, sending both the bear and the woman to the ground. The ground was painted crimson as the bear collapsed in a puddle of blood, the colour splattering the ROOT member as well.

Sai wasted no time before darting at the woman, and drawing his blade across her throat. He looked up at Yamato, who was waiting in the trees, and the dark haired young man nodded at his comrade in thanks and greeting. He looked at his older friend and comrade, and the low uneasy feeling in the pit of Sai's stomach stirred its head again, as Sai's leg muscles protested at the motion from the crouch into a stand. Sai's last thought before he hit the ground was wondering if his other friends were alright.

* * *

Ok guys, I know that you might be a little annoyed at a lack of Itachi and Sakura action but it is coming!

But just a hint here, more reviews, more inspiration and motivation, faster updates.

That's all I got to say!


End file.
